(MintPress) – Quebec student groups celebrated this week after newly elected Premier Pauline Marois announced the government would cancel proposed tuition hikes. Over a year of sustained public demonstrations, often drawing upward of 100,000 people proved successful in pressuring the government to end plans for a tuition increase.
The win, while an important step for students hoping to keep college affordable for most Quebecois may be short lived as the decision can be reversed by future governments. However, the mass grassroots mobilization serves as an important example for other student and popular movements, proving that it is possible to confront government austerity through peaceful, non-violent resistance.
The success of the Quebec student demonstrations could help to revive the defunct Occupy movement by demonstrating that opposition to neoliberal economic policies can be overcome through sustained mass protest. While it is unclear how long the Quebec government will adhere to tuition freezes, the victory is one that will be celebrated in student groups and allied activist organization groups confronting austerity measures.
A temporary victory?
Canadian author and political activist Naomi Klein commented on the news through Twitter, saying, “This is why radical movements are mercilessly mocked. They can win. It’s official: Quebec tuition hikes are history.”
The news was also celebrated by the leaders of the major student unions. Martine Desjardins, president of the Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec, offered joyful words in a public statement, saying, “It’s a total victory! Together we’ve written a chapter in the history of Quebec. It’s a triumph of justice and equity.”
Desjardins represents the largest Quebec student association with a membership of about 125,000. “It’s a new era of collaboration instead of confrontation,” added the student president.
Pauline Marois campaigned on a platform to keep Quebec tuitions at present rates, at times donning a red square of fabric, a ubiquitous symbol of the student movement. Most provisions of Bill 78, a set of emergency laws designed to limit student demonstrations, were overturned in the decision as well.
While Marois has won popular support from many students and sympathetic Quebecois because of province-wide tuition freezes, she has also reignited the controversial debate surrounding Quebecois independence and cultural separatism after taking office earlier this month.
Marois is the first female premier in Quebec’s history and the first pro-separatist to be elected to office in nine years. Earlier this month, at a victory party for Marois, a gunman opened fire, killing one and injuring another in what authorities have declared a politically motivated attack against the Marois government.
However, the hard-fought gains of the student movement could be reversed in the next election should a more conservative government decide to reinstitute tuition hikes.
Regardless of future election outcomes, the Quebec government plans to discuss the issue of college tuition within the coming year, leaving the possibility that government officials could restart talk of tuition hikes.
The victory, even if it is short lived, could help to revive similar, struggling student movements. In Chile, students continue to battle government austerity amidst increased police crackdowns and waning popular support.
Lessons for Chile
Chilean students have been protesting against high university tuition rates, which are among the highest in Latin America. Additionally, there have been no new public universities built in Chile since the end of the Pinochet dictatorship in 1990 despite increases in the number of students eligible to attend university.
Former president of the Confederation of University Students of Chile (Confech), Camilia Vallejo, believes that the movement does not have the same strength as one year ago, saying, “We are obviously in a different stage this year. I would be wrong to say that the movement has the ability to mobilize like it did last year, because that isn’t so.”
At the height of protests last year, 76 percent of the Chilean public supported the student movement, according to an opinion poll by La Tercera. Recent opinion polls indicate sharply waning support for the movement as only 30 percent of the public now supports the once robust movement.
Clashes with the police and disruptive occupations of university buildings have contributed to the shrinking support. However, the latest victory in Quebec may serve to buoy the spirits of embattled Chilean students.
Education was last reformed during the Pinochet dictatorship in 1975-1990 when government subsidies for education were cut by more than 50 percent. Today, the average Chilean student graduates with $40,000 in debt, similar to levels of student debt in the U.S.
Many student leaders contend that the wealth from Chile’s vast copper resources, if nationalized, could easily provide free higher education to all youth in the country. Thus far, there has been no workable solution to the conflict as students continue to strike and occupy universities and high school campuses.
President Sebastian Piñera introduced a 21-point proposal to end the standoff last month. The proposal included provisions to increase university scholarships and provide help for students with excessive, unpayable debts. However, the students rejected the proposal claiming Pinera’s plans were too vague and did not address the central demands of the movement.
U.S. students have remained comparatively quiet on the issue of tuition increases, as students across the U.S. spent an average of $36,300 on tuition at private colleges in the academic year 2010-2011, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
Despite accumulating more than $1 trillion nationally in debt, student opposition to increasing tuitions has remained relatively diffuse, limited to small, grassroots resistance.
Students at University of California schools staged a zombie walk earlier this summer in opposition to the Board of Regents’ plans to increase tuition. Protesters at the event interrupted the question and comment section of a Board of Regents meeting in July, a sign that students may be mobilizing a similar, Quebec style opposition to tuition hikes.
The average student at the University of California graduates with $17,000 in debt.