CONFECH denied access to education budget proposal

The students of CONFECH have been denied access to viewing the education budget proposal before it is sent through Congress. The students’ demand of not returning to classes has also been denied by the government.

Graffiti calls for a solution to education. Photo credit: Julia Dose

This has lessened their confidence in the government’s willingness to solve problems as they enter into their first round table meeting with Minister of Education Felipe Bulnes at 5:00 p.m., Sept. 29 to discuss the student movement.

The meeting, which will take place after a march from Plaza Italia to Universidad de Santiago, was arranged after a 10-hour marathon day of negotiations on Monday, Sept. 25 at Lo Contador de la Universidad Católica.

Bulnes claims to have told the students that they would be able to see the education budget proposal at the same time as other Chileans, when it is released to the public, saying that further discussions can be held after that date.

The students told El Mostrador that Bulnes had told them that they could see the proposal just two days before he had a meeting with President Piñera and he backtracked on this promise after this meeting.

“We have been put in a complex environment. We have to discuss it with our bases. We are not intransigent,” David Urrea from la Federación de Estudiantes del Universidad de Arturo Prat told El Mostrador. He also recalled that Bulnes had told them he wanted to be transparent with the budget and would agree to this demand. “The government has been characterized with disorganization…we talked with him and he said there would be no problem and we felt that at the round table we would be shown the budget as well and now this is not going to happen. We are a little scared because we don’t want to fall into disorder.” 

Minister of Finance and Budget Felipe Larraín later said that the budget would be discussed as usual in the halls of Congress as the budget is a plan for the country and is not known by anyone before compromises are met on the matter of education.

“I cannot give figures until we have the budget,” Larraín said. “Though I anticipate that there will be a significant increase and significant concentration of resources in education because that is the commitment we made. There are also many projects in Congress already that give delinquent borrowers a chance to reschedule their debts, such as reducing the cost of financing and the availability of state-backed credit. All these things require resources so they will be there.” 

He went on to add that the country is interested in happy students but they also must make sure that the rest of the country is happy as well as the budget is for the benefit of all Chileans.