Chile grapples with school violence after one of the world's largest school closures

Six-year-old student Román Catalán, while his temperature is taken before entering the building for his first day back to face-to-face classes, this March in Chile. Esteban Félix (AP)

A school in Iquique (Atacama, northern Chile) suspended classes this week after the director and teachers received death threats.

A group of young people demanded through Instagram that they reinstate expelled students.

In the images uploaded to the social network, firearms appeared inside the classrooms.

In mid-April, an 18-year-old student was arrested in Santiago for posting a video on YouTube in which he warned of a "school massacre."

In Talcahuano, 500 kilometers south of the capital, the mother of a student stabbed a teacher in the back in broad daylight in an educational establishment.

Since the beginning of the Chilean school year, on March 2, the mandatory return to face-to-face classes has been marked by serious episodes of violence and a 38% increase in complaints of mistreatment among students -compared to the same date in 2018- 2019-, according to data from the Superintendency of Education.

Experts attribute the increase to the prolonged closure of schools during the pandemic (77 weeks, similar to the neighbors in the region; the world average was 38, according to Unicef), which would have deepened the lack of development of social practices and the tolerance among peers and against the authorities.

The Minister of Education, Marco Antonio Ávila, has recognized that it was a mistake to maintain remote classes for so long.

In September of last year, a group of congressmen related to Gabriel Boric, including the current government spokesperson, Camila Vallejo, filed a constitutional accusation against the then head of Education, Raúl Figuroa, for promoting the return to the classroom without establishing the “ protective measures” necessary for the educational community, for which it had infringed “the right to physical and mental integrity of people.”

The accusation did not go ahead.

“The lack of socialization for two years was very serious, it affected it,” said Ávila, who blamed the previous government for an “abrupt” return to schools.

María Teresa Romero, who founded Escuelas Abiertas in March 2021, explains that during the second semester of last year a voluntary return to classrooms was established, but that it was not successful: “We saw cases in which children attended school only twice. week.

Some mayors and politicians were reluctant to open the schools.”

Last October, most schools were open, but more than half of the students did not go because their parents did not send them, mainly out of fear, according to a study by the ministry and the country's main universities.

"Families increase trust over time," says the academic Susana Claro, from the School of Government of the Pontifical Catholic University (PUC).

“We will be left without knowing what would have happened if we had opened earlier and with less of a terror campaign.

Let's remember that when infections dropped, the president of the College of Teachers appealed to the danger of other viruses if they attended face-to-face classes, ”she points out.

Carlos Diaz, president of the College of Teachers, defends that the determination of the educational community, driven by teachers, "but also by parents, allowed many lives to be saved."

The week before the return in March, Díaz maintained that the return of the students was "destined to fail if the health protocol is not changed."

By then, the projection indicated that more than 90% of children between 6 and 17 years of age would have two doses of the vaccine.

Christian Berger, deputy director of Research and Postgraduate Studies at the PUC School of Psychology, and one of the 13 experts who advise the Ministry of Education on issues of coexistence, points out that "more than looking for responsibilities, we have to do a good reading of how we advance”.

”For two years the students stopped practicing and learning how to relate to others.

It was a format of individual, immediate relationship, without developing tolerance.

There is a lot of psychological insecurity, they have to re-settle with classmates, feel like good students again,

In an attempt to take pressure off students, the Ministry of Education has announced that this year the test of the Education Quality Measurement System (Simce) will not be carried out, criticized by the College of Teachers for considering that it causes pressure for rankings and financial incentives for performance.

"The Simce is very important because it allows the adoption of public policies," says Berger.

“The problem is what and how it is used for.

In some cases it can generate competition.

So the problem is not the measurement, but the educational system”, he states.

One of Boric's campaign promises was to eliminate the test permanently.

The Ministry of Education launched this Tuesday a program to address the "crisis and school coexistence" in the 60 communes -of the existing 346- that present the greatest episodes of violence.

The proposal includes the strengthening of the mental health program, a national tutoring plan, a reading and writing strategy, and an economic injection to repair the infrastructure of public establishments at risk of total or partial suspension due to problems ranging from electrical failures even poor security conditions.

The proposal to deal with episodes of violence contemplates a budget of 1.7 million dollars.

Romero, from Escuelas Abiertas, welcomes the strategy, but believes that the figure is insufficient.

Another factor that worries him is that the ministry has already warned that distance and/or differentiation measures will be adopted at the end of May if the courses do not meet the threshold of 80% of vaccinated students.

“Therefore, will it really be possible to recover knowledge, reactivate and take charge of the mental health of students and teachers if a scenario is seen in which we will have to go back in face-to-face attendance?”, questions the teacher.

This Tuesday parents of students from different schools met with municipal authorities to put together a proposal.

The president of the association of municipalities, Gustavo Alessandri, announced that next week they will present to the Ministry of Education a plan to establish "school councils" made up of the presidents of parent, student and class centers.

“We have to work together with parents to reduce violence in establishments.

Review with the families the factors that are causing these events and worry about the victim as well as the aggressor”, he affirms.

The violence in schools did not start in March.

In 2019, the Government of Sebastián Piñera carried out a controversial law called 'Aula Segura' to deal with this problem.

The regulations allow the expulsion of students who carry any type of weapon, commit any type of aggression or cause "damage to the infrastructure".

Díaz, from the College of Teachers, considers that "it criminalizes the student movement" and that the problems that the country is dragging in this matter must "be solved with more education, not with more police."

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