Students occupy University of Chile's central building

Following over a hundred arrests made yesterday and clashes with police, students in Santiago on Friday occupied the central building of the University of Chile, the country’s most important higher education facility, as the demands to the government over education reform continued.

Some thirty university students entered the building this morning, located metres from the Chilean presidential palace, in the centre of Santiago.

In 2011, the building was taken over for the period of five months, while bloody protests and clashes took place on the Chilean capital city's streets on numerous occasions throughout the year.

“Secondary school students and university students are in the same fight and we are not going to take a step back on this,” the president of the student’s federation from the University of Chile Gabriel Boric said on his Twitter account today.

Students reignited their claims two weeks ago in the hopes of changing the education system left by dictator Augusto Pinochet (in power from 1973-1990) demanding free university education and central government control over public schools.

Many schools were occupied in peaceful protests across the Chilean capital city during this time, which came to a head yesterday when police arrested 139 students for participating in the protests.