Founding The
FECh was founded on October 21, 1906, after a group of medical students sought to protest the seating of the ceremony held to honor their fight against smallpox, the FECh was founded the next day with the unconditional support of the
Radical Party politician and University of Chile law professor Valentin Letelier – who served as rector of the university from 1906 until 1913. Letelier was one of the most prominent political and social thinkers of the time. As the rector of the university his support meant the federation had the support from the entire university and could make great impacts in uniting students past their classrooms. This began as reading groups and after school meetings. The goal of the organization was to defend the rights and opinions of the student body of the
University of Chile by being the main advocate for social and political rights for students, including better educational standards. Another goal was to grant social assistance to workers and the dispossessed. This included providing them with education launching programs to aid workers and those involved with the organizations activities. Soon social group's emerged aligning themselves with the poorer working class creating social programs and welfares for those in need. The FECh became a common meeting place for leaders of the AOAN, FOCh and
IWW to discuses the organization of protests and other mobilization efforts. The FECh became a large supporting group for
Salvador Allende campaign by the late 1960s, this came after many political actors realized the significance of these student organizations being influential mechanisms that were largely politicalized. The night Allende had won the popular vote and became president, he gave his victory speech on the balcony of the clubs headquarters. Pinochet also introduced a neoliberal system that evolved Chiles educational model subsidizing schools and private educations. This only increased the quantity of students needing education not the quality of the educators. The right to public education was diminished. This directly caused a large disparity between each level of education and social education inequality became prevalent in Chile. Pinochet's goals with Chilean education sought to limit higher education and those who had access to universities. This included removing large amounts of funding to universities many having to shut down or increase tuition immensely to combat the loss of state funding, making the universities in Chile the most expensive in Latin America. The privatization of public education and the limit to higher education left a large gap of education inequality in the country that was felt even after the dictatorships was demolished. Between 1978 and 1981 the FECh was replaced by a new
right-wing student federation, the
Federación de centros de estudiantes de la Universidad de Chile (a.k.a., FeCECh), this quasi- student federation was directly controlled by non-academic actors appointed by the military government of
Pinochet. FeCECh disbanded itself in 1984. During the 1980s the FECh played a leading role in student mobilizations in opposition to the military regime, and built themselves back up with the return of democracy in Chile in 1990.
Early 2000's By the early 2000s, even after the rise of democracy, The class system Pinochet had instituted was not easily broken, neoliberal inequality dominated the education system. Even so, the gap between those who had access to higher education began to slowly shrink as new universities immerged. The requirements set by Pinochet to create places of higher education were reduced after democracy was put back into place. Soon by the late 1990s, 30 new universities were established and by 2010, a little over 1 million students were enrolled in private universities. A new generation immerged of political involved students often called the "fearless generation" sought to engage in stronger political movements as the countries began to rebuild democracy. In this new generation of post-dictatorship youth, still feeling the left over effects of Pinochet's regime which were still deeply rooted even 20 years, often joined political organizations utilizing this as a reason to increase there involvement in the anti-neoliberal and social movements without the fear that democracy would be demolished. Student protest involving the FECh saw a significant increase between 2006 and 2011. Peaceful protests and nation strikes emerged with the support of the FECh The result of the
2006 student protests in Chile would leave a lasting impact and would directly influence the 2011 student protests in Chile.
Camila Vallejo led the student protest as president of the FECh and spokesperson of the CONFECH. By late August the once peaceful protests became violent. Student led protests continued in 2012 and by 2013 with the presidential election
Michelle Bachelet, the new president promised universal access to free education. By 2013, many students still felt as if the countries inequality distribution of wealth was the reason for the continuous disparity in education. The wealthy's unwellness to contribute in growing education in Chile fueled further grievances students were not able to resolve during the protests. == See also ==