Updated on
Summary Riot police fired tear gas and water cannons to disperse demonstrators.
Police said at least 4,000 people took part in the march from the University of Santiago through the citys center, in the latest demonstration of a student protest movement that began April 28.There was no immediate word from the authorities on arrests in the incidents at the end of the march, when masked protesters armed with sticks and hurling rocks attacked police, who responded by firing tear gas and jets of water from water cannons.The march followed a day of protests in Valparaiso, the seat of the parliament 120 kilometres (75 miles) west of Santiago, in which nine people were arrested following similar clashes.The students, with the backing of professors and labor unions, are demanding that the conservative government of President Sebastian Pinera overhaul the education system to guarantee free, quality university-level education for all Chileans.Protesters also want more funds for education in the 2012 budget currently under discussion, and a law transferring responsibility for public schools from towns to the central government to guarantee equal funding.The measure, known as demunicipalization, is scheduled to be discussed in Congress by the end of the month.The protests have been the biggest, and most sustained, since the end of the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet more than two decades ago.Under Pinochet, state funding for public education was slashed, privatization encouraged and responsibility for public schools passed to municipalities.
