Colombian Education Reform Dropped Amid Protests

Colombian students took to the streets in massive demonstrations on November 10 in numbers not seen since the 1970s protests for educational autonomy, leading to a rapid response from the government of President Juan Manuel Santos. At issue was the education reform bill Ley 30, introduced by the president to restructure higher education. The demonstration led Congress to announce the legislation’s withdrawal, and on November 17 students announced they would end a month-long boycott of universities. Student groups, however, have vowed to go ahead with a demonstration planned for November 24, a day they agreed to with the support of Chilean students and which they hope will garner region-wide attention.

Protests began on October 12, nine days after Ley 30 was introduced to Congress. The law proposed to invest $3.5 billion into higher education over the next 10 years and to boost enrollment by 600,000. It would have also expanded the system of private, for-profit universities to increase the number of graduates. Students and academics complained the reforms would privatize the university system, worsen the quality of education, decrease university independence, and increase costs, and instead demanded high-quality higher education, free for all. More than half a million students boycotted universities after the introduction of the legislation to Congress and demonstrated throughout October. These protests culminated in a massive nationwide protest on November 10, which managed to attract as many as 200,000 marchers in Bogota. In the wake of the protests, Congress agreed to withdraw the law on November 16, and as a result, students ended their strike and returned to classes the following day.

However, students said they would continue with plans for the November 24 “Continental Day of Mobilization in Defense of Education as a Right,” a march planned in partnership with students in Chile, where education protests have been underway since May. The seven-month-long protests in Chile have become an embarrassment for President Sebastián Piñera’s government, and Chilean demands for free education inspired similar protests throughout the region. The November 24 march in Bogota will call for students throughout Latin America to take up the banner. The students connect with each other through social media, though the group’s Facebook page so far shows little interest outside Colombia and Chile. Jairo Rivera, the spokesperson for Colombia’s student organization, the Broad National Student Council, defended the plan: “Each movement has its own issues but there are many common demands. It’s important that young people are political actors in Latin America.” 

While it’s unclear if the protests will spread beyond Chile and Colombia, globalization plays an important role in the student demonstrations. An article in Semana contextualizes the protests as part of the globalization of student movements, arguing that “globalization has brought a student mobilization to Colombia,” based on protests in the United Kingdom, the indignados of Spain, and the Occupy protests that began in the United States. In an op-ed in El Espectador, Colombian sociologist and legal scholar César Rodríguez Garavito explained the power of globalization on student movements, saying that the protesters in Colombia and around the world “share the recognition of direct citizen participation in public decisions.” He also stressed the importance of technology, explaining that “like other protests in the era of social networking, it embodies a different way to do politics and has a more horizontal, decentralized logic than past movements.” With the Colombian and Chilean marches planned for November 24, time will tell if there’s truly a “regional contagion.”

Learn More:

• Semana article evaluating the process leading to the withdrawal of the law.
• Official blog of the Mesa Amplia Nacional Estudiantil, the group leading the protests.
• The Colombian Ministry of Education website.
• BBC: "Colombia Student Protests in Pictures."
• Photos of the Chilean student protests from The Atlantic
• Video of the Colombian student protests from the AFP