ARGENTINA: Educational System on Verge of Collapse

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, May 20 2005 (IPS) - Teachers and students throughout Argentina took part in a nationwide strike and a massive demonstration in Buenos Aires on Friday to protest against the dismal state of the public schools and demand a new educational funding law.

In a strike called by the Confederation of Education Sector Workers of Argentina (CTERA), thousands of public school teachers walked out on their jobs around the country and gathered in the capital, where they marched on Congress, calling for government spending on education to be raised from four to six percent of gross domestic product (GDP) within the next three years.

The march coincided with the culmination of protests staged by secondary school students in the capital. On Thursday, students held sit-ins in schools around the city to denounce the dire physical and hygienic conditions they are forced to endure, which include cracked and crumbling walls and ceilings, infestations of rodents, and water and gas shortages.

Their protests were given unexpected official endorsement when the courts ordered a city government-run school to be shut down after a fire department inspection determined that the building was in danger of collapsing. The inspectors also reported a high risk of electrocution, the complete absence of fire extinguishers, and a “total lack of hygiene.”

Susana Morales, the mother of a student at another Buenos Aires secondary school, told IPS, “The school is crumbling, and I don’t mean that as a metaphor.” During a parents’ meeting held earlier this week in one of the classrooms, a chunk of the ceiling fell down, she recounted.

The CTERA demonstration capped off a week of scattered protests over the limited funds that the government allocates to public education. But rather than denouncing the poor physical state of schools or low salaries, the mobilisation was aimed at what the unions believe to be the fundamental cause of the deterioration of teaching and learning conditions.

Teachers blame the situation on the Federal Education Law adopted in April 1993, which transferred jurisdiction over public schools from the federal to the provincial governments. This has led to nationwide disparities in both educational content and teachers’ salaries.

As a result, children and teenagers are taught from a different curriculum in every province. In addition, primary school teachers in the northern Argentine province of Chaco are paid a monthly salary of 340 pesos (roughly 110 dollars), while their counterparts in the southern province of Santa Cruz earn 880 pesos (290 dollars).

In some provinces, schools with hundreds of students have just one or two toilets, or only a latrine, while others have no benches for students to sit on, and a great many lack janitorial staff, teachers for special subjects, computer equipment, books and other essential supplies.

Thanks to this unequal system, which teachers have been protesting for 10 years, the country’s schools are now in critical condition, CTERA general secretary Hugo Yasky told IPS.

Just as the “neoliberal economic model” of the 1990s collapsed at the end of the decade, “we are now witnessing the collapse of the educational model,” said the trade unionist.

“The federal government must resume its integrating role and share joint responsibility with the provincial governments for salaries and spending on education,” he added.

As the country’s economic and social situation worsened throughout the 1990s, symptoms of this deterioration began to emerge in the schools. Thousands of children came to class hungry and some even passed out in front of their teachers, prompting a number of schools to begin providing students with snacks and lunches.

The late 2001 financial and economic meltdown plunged over half of Argentina’s 37 million inhabitants below the poverty line, although the last two years have brought a certain degree of economic recovery.

Under the current education law, the federal Ministry of Education has no responsibility for schools or teachers, and is powerless to intervene in the disputes that arise periodically in the country’s provinces over delays in the payment of teachers’ salaries. In some cases, students miss months of classes due to long drawn-out strikes.

The CTERA is calling on Congress to enact a new law that will increase federal spending on education, reinstate the federal government’s former coordinating role in the educational sector, and re-establish wage parity for teachers throughout the country.

The administration of left-leaning President Néstor Kirchner, who took office in May 2003, is in agreement with the need to raise the public education budget to six percent of GDP, but proposes a more gradual increase, with the final goal reached in 2010.

Education Minister Daniel Filmus noted that his ministry plans to make preschool education compulsory, while striving to ensure that a higher proportion of students complete secondary school, as well as promoting more demanding standards for both students and teachers.

Filmus admits that educational outcomes vary greatly from one province to another, and that the federal government needs to adopt mechanisms to bring about the nationwide standardisation of minimum educational requirements and teachers’ salaries.

For his part, Yasky stressed that the teachers’ protests are not aimed against the government, but rather at promoting dialogue between the government and educators, to speed up the adoption of measures that will increase funding and thereby improve the quality of education in the shortest time possible.