SANTIAGO (Reuters) - Hundreds of Chilean students and teachers fought riot police armed with tear gas and water cannons in the capital on Tuesday, the latest protest against an unpopular education reform bill.
Police said they arrested 150 people, 82 of them youths,after police were pelted with stones and two officers wereinjured.
Teachers and students want President Michelle Bachelet towithdraw an education bill from Congress under which aneducation superintendent would regulate government funds forpublic schools.
Protesters say the bill does not address concerns thatChile's education system is being privatized, and they believethat the education of poorer students will suffer at ill-fundedstate schools as a result of the measure.
"We are protesting against a bill that does not take intoaccount or develop the aspirations of students or teachers,"said history teacher Luis Vicencio, a protest leader.
"The responsibility of the state is to provide publiceducation, so that the children of the poorest can study free,"he added. "With this bill, that is lost."
As he spoke, medics tended to one protester lying on thecapital's main artery, the Alameda, who suffered a head injuryafter he was doused by a water cannon.
Jaime Gajardo, president of Chile's National College ofTeachers, said four professors were wounded.
"We are going to keep protesting," said Arturo Martinez,president of the CUT, Chile's largest umbrella workers' union,which joined the teachers' protest. He said his group wasplanning a two-day nationwide strike but did not announce adate.
"We will do everything we have to, responsibly, to blockthis reform."
A poll published this month showed Bachelet's approvalrating fell in June for a third month due to protests bystudents and teachers against the education bill and quickeninginflation that hit a 17-year high in June.
In June, thousands of teachers and students protestedagainst the bill, which has been passed by the lower house ofcongress. The senate has yet to vote on it. The bill wouldreplace a law in place since the end of Augusto Pinochet's1973-1990 dictatorship.
(Reporting by Simon Gardner and Manuel Farias; Editing byCynthia Osterman)
