Until next July 7, a Popular Norm Initiative can be supported to correct, eliminate, replace, modify or add articles to the constitutional draft.
In total, 1,309 initiatives were presented, which were made public on June 22 on the secretariadeparticpacion.cl website.
These must collect digital signatures using the Unique Key, through the Popular Initiatives platform. Each person can support up to a maximum of 10 initiatives in total, and those that reach 10,000 signatures in at least four regions may be discussed in the Constitutional Council.
So far, the initiatives that lead the vote are from groups linked to the opposition.
The one that so far has the most adherence is “Not with my money, let’s protect our pension savings”, presented by the Organization With My Money No, with 9,286 signatures.
It is followed by “Respect for the activities that give rise to the identity of being Chilean”, presented by the Organización Corporación Vive Chile Rural, with 8,253; “For a State without Pitutos”, by the Pivotes Organization, with 7,679; “A police force that protects us”, from the Organization I Support Carabineros, with 6,117; and “Chile for the animals”, from the Organization Fundación Derecho y Defensa Animal, with 5,781 signatures.
Constitutional duty in educational action
In the Education area, for example, initiatives have been presented in different areas. One of them was raised by the Consortium of State Universities of Chile. It is about “Public Education for Chile” (nº 5127), in order to recognize the State as a provider of public, secular, pluralistic and quality education, at all levels of education and territories of Chile.
There have also been proposals from the academic world. The philosopher and educator, Germán Gómez Veas, presented the initiative called “The Constitutional Duty of Educational Action” (nº 1091).
“I was motivated by the fact that the experts proposed a text that includes eight constitutional duties, which is a novelty. The previous Constitutional Convention did not think about constitutional duties, and the current Constitution does not have one either. It is a super interesting innovation, however, in these eight assignments they do not mention education, a problem that we have had for at least three decades in Chile. As a country, it is necessary to provide some tool, some way, some framework to be able to recover to a decent level of educational effectiveness”, said Germán Gómez.
He added that “the experts gave citizens who exercise public functions a responsibility in terms of administrative probity in the areas of State service. And the educational service, in my opinion, has to have a very first priority, because it is the people, in this case the well-educated students and young people, who are going to renew the institutions with their way of being and doing, which is precisely the focus of the proposal that I have made”.
According to Gómez, “authority and prestige, respect for teaching, have declined in our country to levels that had never been seen before. Today it is very simple to disrespect the teacher by students and also by parents. The prestige and teaching authority have declined greatly, and I think it is necessary to rebuild that prestige. That is restored, in my opinion, when the educational action, the educational task, can be visualized with objective clarity. That is why I call it ‘educational duty’, on the one hand. But on the other, it is also necessary for all of us as a country to commit to a minimum framework of educational action, so that educational effectiveness also finds a north, an objective, a purpose”.
In summary, he said, “this initiative aims, on the one hand, for teachers and educators to have or assume the duty to educate about the character of schoolchildren with respect to truth, goodness and beauty, which are the properties of reality. Because without truth and without good, students learn nothing, and understanding that beauty has a superior inner depth is key to the world today and the future”.
He also highlighted that “several initiatives have been presented regarding the education law or the right to teach, as well as the preferential right of parents to educate their children. But ‘duty’ I have only seen this one. People are still used to talking more about rights than pronouncing about some duty”
