The bill was approved last week in the Senate by 44 votes in favor and one abstention, and will benefit some 57,000 teachers.

The historical debt originated in 1981 when the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet transferred public education from the State’s tutelage to municipal governments. However, the new employers did not recognize the salary adjustments, which affected income and pensions.

The new law provides pay of 4.5 million pesos (about 4,600 dollars) to each affected teacher, starting with those over 80 years old. It also considers opening a new registration process to present the background information for those not in the Ministry of Education’s database. It also contemplates that their relatives can inherit that amount from those who die during the payment period.

Minister of Education Nicolás Cataldo thanked the parliamentarians for the accuracy in approving this project, which was submitted only in December. “We had to take advantage of the opportunity because it took 43 years for the State to decide to address the issue, a period in which thousands of teachers have died waiting for this moment,” he said.

The president of the College of Teachers, Mario Aguilar, recognized the effort of the educators’s group who for many years attended the La Moneda Palace, the seat of the presidency, every Thursday to demand payment of the debt. “This is a modest amount, a small piece of justice, but the most relevant thing is that the State recognized that there was damage and arbitrariness,” he said.

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