EDUCATION-ARGENTINA: Still Fasting for Funds a Year Later

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Apr 1 1998 (IPS) - A year after Argentina’s public school teachers hit on an original form of applying pressure for increased financial support for education, there is still a waiting list of teachers keen on joining the hunger strike.

On Apr. 2, 1997, the Confederation of Education Workers set up a giant tent outside Congress, demanding new legislation that would guarantee funding for the public school system, caught in the grips of its worst crisis ever.

Since then, some 500 teachers from all over the country have taken turns fasting, radio and TV programmes have been broadcast from the tent, and more than 100 concerts and other cultural events have been held there. According to a survey by the Sociology Department of the University of Buenos Aires, the fasters have the support of 87 percent of the population.

But besides winning most of the country over to their cause, the teachers have seen little progress: a new law on the educational budget has not made it through Congress.

Dozens of government promises fell by the wayside this year. The initiatives were simply shelved in Congress or frustrated by failure to drum up the needed support. Today, teachers are waiting for debate on a draft law that would levy taxes on the rich to finance public education.

In the meantime, the “teachers tent” continues to receive a flood of visitors – pensioners, human rights leaders, reknowned Argentine writers such as Ernesto Sabato, local musicians and famous foreign singer-songwriters like Spain’s Joan Manuel Serrat, dancers, reporters, tourists, and primary, secondary and university students. Entire classes spend the day learning there.

The rented tent was finally bought by the teachers when it became clear that the protest would not have an early happy ending. Now the tent has its own street address and telephone numbers, as well as bathrooms, although the hunger strikers have to visit a union building 600 metres away to shower.

Marta Maffei, secretary-general of the Confederation of Education Workers, believes the teachers have achieved widespread social support because the unique form of protest did not interfere with classes. Teachers went on strike only five days this year, six counting Thursday, the anniversary of the start of the fast.

Laura Ramallo, a 31-year-old high school history teacher, told IPS about her decision to travel to Buenos Aires and join the hunger strike for 15 days: “I have three children and it was a sacrifice to come here from my town. But I am afraid for the future. I feel that we are committing suicide as a society by failing to invest in education.”

Ramallo considers herself “privileged” because she only works in two schools, instead of four or five like many of the so-called “taxi teachers,” forced to hurry from one workplace to another to make ends meet.

But her experience in Saladillo, a town in the province of Buenos Aires, has shown her that demands for quality education cannot be met unless they are accompanied by adequate funding.

“I have more than 45 students in some courses. Quality education is impossible with so many kids packed into small classrooms. At one time we had to go to a nearby social club to hold class more comfortably,” said Ramallo.

In the province of Buenos Aires, the country’s most populous region, a teacher earns 380 dollars a month. But 66 percent of primary school teachers in the rest of the country earn less than that amount.

The government estimates that an average family needs a minimum of 1,378 dollars a month to get by. But not even the highest paid university professors earn that much, which means teachers are forced to spread themselves thin by taking on more hours in more schools.

Argentina invests 3.7 percent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in education, in spite of government promises to raise that proportion to six percent.

The laws governing the educational budget approved six years ago have since been left empty of content, because the taxes created to support the educational system were simply eliminated.

The national government, meanwhile, decentralised responsibility for education, transferring services to the provinces – many of which have serious budgetary problems – without footing the bill.

The most pressing concerns listed by Argentines in a recent survey by the Inter-American Development Bank were unemployment – 17 percent at the close of last year – and education. The public school system not only provides education for those unable or unwilling to send their children to private institutions, but also provides health services and subsidised meals.

Jorge Larreaga, a 30-year-old high school math teacher, is a hunger striker from Necochea, at the extreme south of the province of Buenos Aires, where he gives 40 hours of classes a week in three schools, two in outlying rural areas and adult education courses in town.

“Mondays and Wednesdays I leave home at 8:00 AM and get back at 11:00 PM. My basic monthly salary is 600 pesos (around 600 dollars), and I earn 200 more for working in schools far from the city, where no one wants to go because spending hours commuting is exhausting,” Larreaga told IPS.

Both Ramallo and Larreaga believe that the tough 15-day liquid diet and long nights in the tent have been worth it. “Before, teachers were seen as women who ‘helped’ their husbands with their wages. But the tent has helped people see teachers as ‘education workers,’ and many women teachers as heads of households who support families,” said Larreaga.

“We needed to desmystify the vision of teachers as ‘apostles’, driven by their sense of vocation,” he added. “People now understand that we cannot fulfill our mission without resources, not only for higher salaries, but also for infrastructure, training and new projects.”

The tent has “united teachers and professors from all over the country at a time when they had divided us,” said Ramallo, referring to the decentralisation of the upkeep and administration of schools and the up to 300 percent lower wages in some provinces.

“The tent no longer belongs to just the teachers, but to everyone. For that reason people have supported us and expressed solidarity, giving us the strength to continue our struggle,” Larreaga stressed.