There’s no worse deaf than the one who doesn’t want to hear. All the discomfort in Chile is neither original nor recent. Of course, it is difficult for many of us to understand the degree of violence to which it has been reached, even if human beings always at critical times of saturation of their patience, they adopt disproportionate, excessive and extreme reactions. A taxi driver who travels through all the communes said to me: “I don’t know where so many people want to make trouble and, worst of all, there are many every day. … I don’t know what these people do” Here’s the key to the matter.
A study published in July this year by Actitud Lab based on the results of the 2017 Casen survey indicated that Chile has 528,754 young people aged 15 to 29 who neither study nor work, popularly referred to as “ninis”. In addition, of chile’s 4,161,947 young people among these ages, another 46.1% (about two million) study only. Our country ranks fourth in the world with the highest proportion of young people in the Ninis category (21%), the OECD was highlighted in the 2017 Global Education Overview report. Unemployment in these young people is around 25%, almost 4 times higher than average, i.e. most ninis are looking for work, but they can’t find it.
You could say that then they should study because that will make it easier for them to find work which is also worth examining. The Sol Foundation in a 2017 study showed that studying is a better business for banks than for students. Indeed, the total resources provided by banks between 2006 and 2016, through the EAC, to the higher education institutions benefiting, is $4.1 trillion (million million). Only three banks have been allocated 90% of the loans: Scotiabank, Estado, and Ita’u-Corpbanca.
Nor does the taxman win with this because, while in 2006 the EAC accounted for 2.4% of the higher education budget, today it reaches 36.5% and Fisco commits resources of $726.427 million. This amount is almost identical to the amount for free, which represents 37.6%.
Young debtors rose from 270,000 in March 2010 to more than 730 thousand in 2016. In short, in Chile, educating and borrowing are part of the same equation, concludes the Sol Foundation.
The 10 communes with the highest delinquency rate in Greater Santiago have almost twice the rate of multidimensional poverty, three times as much poverty by income and half the household’s self-income, than the 10 communes with lower delinquencies. That is, with the current rules of the Chilean system, inviting people to study more seems like a trap because the concrete results are high indebtedness and little chance of getting jobs that will allow them to survive and pay the debt.
Thus, there are thousands of young people who wander without any hope or hope because the system gave them to their fate. They have nothing to do. Get together in
Plaza Italia at the time of recent demonstrations – said a teenager living in Sename homes, interviewed by The Clinic – is a way of feeling part of something. Otherwise they have nothing to do. Javier Krawicki, co-founder of TuPrimeraPega.cl, adds that, in addition, “there are many young people, especially in vulnerable sectors, who eventually demotivate. They also get demotivated with the famous “pituto”…” of which, by the way, they don’t have. Krawicki adds – in interview with emol in January 2018 – that “somehow the ninis are a symptom of a society of few opportunities for people with fewer resources and nini is finally a realist in the face of this. His calculation is “what am I going to strive for if I’m going to win a pittance.” The big problem, he adds, is that a part of this group of young people falls into trafficking or crime.
These young people have joined the protests because they accumulate anger and hopelessness. The reactions of Chile’s political and business elite after 50 days have been to release some marginal gifts and, although calm will surely return to the streets, if structural solutions that give hope to millions of young people are not brought forward, know that before any juncture there are people very available to go out on the streets again and, unfortunately, not always to propose alternatives, but sometimes to unload the wrath of helplessness; rage against abuse; the feelings of the excluded. It’s millions and it’s not just ninis. They are joined by students with no perspective; casual workers and, more passively but no less committedly, the millions of pensioners who receive income than reach them or to pay for the month’s medications.
The elite has suggested, with a certain tone of naivety, that they have been surprised by the massivity of the events of these 50 days. The same thing has been said for many years and they looked deaf.
The content poured into this opinion column is the sole responsibility of its author, and does not necessarily reflect the editorial line or position of El Mostrador.
