Chile police clash with student protesters

At least 25,000 university student protesters have marched through the streets of Santiago, Chile's capital, calling for reforms in education, local news reported.

Police fired water cannons to disperse demonstrators, after some students broke through police barricades and others hurled stones at anti-riot officers. Fifteen people were arrested, according to authorities.

The students have been pushing the government for years to boost funding in a country with among the highest university fees in the world.

Chilean university students receive only 15 percent state funding, the lowest of all countries part of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

When taking into consideration the average family income in Chile, university fees are nearly three times higher than the United States, Japan, and Australia.

Chile's president Sebastian Pinera has promised more scholarships and said that debt for 100,000 poor students would be recalculated, amongst other reforms, but student leaders say it is not enough.

"Today we are calling for the recovery of public education, equal access to education, quality, greater financing in the sector and, as always, regulation of the private sector and with greater involvement of the state to improve education to stop putting thousands and thousands of families into debt.

We want greater participation from students, workers and teachers in the decisions being made at the universities," Catholic University Student Federation President, Giorgio Jackson, said.

The student protest movement emerged five years ago in Chile under former leftist President Michelle Bachelet.

Al Jazeera's Craig Mauro reports from Santiago.

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[casperorchids]

There is a big storm brewing across the world...

[Cabronosidad]

Neoliberal economic policies are ruining the world, pushing prices up for ordinary people and syphoning the wealth up to the top. It's heartening to see people starting to rebel against corporate fascism. The global elite has had things its own way for far too long.

[peterisnotdead1]

i'm from chile and i'm sure that chile has the worst education system in the whole world cause segrate students, create big debts, install careers that don't have enough employments to guarantify a good rentability, so we have many reasons to protest and next year 2012 you probably see our rage, cause we see the education as a right and not as a way to earn money

[Ninpha03]

@evansbadboy Also more then a half of the people that goes to college rather party and drink alcohol then study and get good grades.

[Ninpha03]

@evansbadboy I don't know about Europe but here in the US education es waaay more expensive then Chile, 4 or 5 times more, so I don't understand way you guys keep saying things like that, you guys have the CORFO credit which is pretty flexible and you start paying it after you are done studing, I'm chilean too and I went to college over there also. I do not agree a whole lot with this situation,

[claudiavenegas7]

this studens sound great

[Forkiller]

@JVCSwagg he is just a ghost, the writing says "democracy ghost"

[JVCSwagg]

1:16 I'm black...should i be offended...? i'm only here for a report!!

[konradix]

..power to the people

john u were right.

[volkannx5]

Well... Giorgio Jackson don't speak ''chilean'' at 0:35

[withnielandi]

@greendayidiot13 I was in Chile and i saw the news and the police where clamping down on the students and shot a young man who was nothing to do with the protest. I think the British govt will clamp down hard on any student protest useing the riots to justify any brutal clamp down but this is truley a global movement and people all over the world know whats going on.