ARGENTINA: General Protest over Crisis in Education

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, May 14 1997 (IPS) - Argentine university students took over two universities and demonstrated Wednesday opposite the vice- chancellors office, while a group of teachers entered their 43rd day of hunger strike – both protests calling for more funds.

The teachers are protesting over the annulation to the law for education funding. A presidential decree eliminated the taxes it imposed, which raised 800 million dollars for the sector each year.

The government, meanwhile, claimed it was spending 10.5 billion dollars per year on education, and that 80 percent of this goes on salaries. But the teachers, who have been offerend the advice of 50 economists, said actual spending on salaries does not exceed 5 billion.

Secondary students blocked one of the main streets of the capital this week compalaining of the poor maintenance of the school buildings.

Their school, attended by 3,000 students, with adminstrative and teaching staff on top, only has one working toilet. The walls, ceilings and floors are in tatters and the promised repairs are never carried out.

Meanwhile, students in the Science, Philosophy and Literature faculties occupied their buildings in a peaceful protest complaining of cutbacks of 300,000 dollars in a budget which had already undergone reductions, and which basically went on paying salaries.

The State University of Buenos Aires had a budget of 277 million dollars for 157,000 students in 1996. This level of funding implies spending of 1,300 dollars per student per year, an average which compares with the seven to 14 thousand spent per student in the private universities, and more than 40,000 dollars in the United States.

The Philosophy and Literature students are also calling for more spacious accomodation, to overcome the overcrowding in classes. Inscription in the social science courses grew from 3,000 to 12,000 students, while still operating in the same building.

Similarly, the students rejected a loan from the World Bank – called the Fund to Improve Educational Quality – considering that the foreign debt keeps rising and the content of the programmes is geared to the interests of the credit giver.

Given these difficulties and the lack of dialogue with the authorities, the students told the vice-chancellor last Thursday they would be blocking a street in the capital on March 22 in order to hold an open class and call attention to their problems.

They also proposed a national march for education for March 28, with support from the national university students federation, the teachers and the education unions, who are currently on hunger strike outside Congress.

The teachers began their hunger strike on April 2, and several of them have already had to be replaced for health reasons. One suffered convulsions this week, returning to the campaign centre set up opposite Parliament as soon as he had recovered.

Secretary general of the teachers union, Marta Maffei, joined the hunger strikers two weeks ago, to give more power to the protests and pressure members of parliament into approving one of the 11 legislative initiatives on education funding.

Maffei stressed the average monthly salary of Argentine teachers stands at around 300 pesos (on a par with dollars), while the basic consumer basket costs 1,378 pesos per month.

The university professors working in the exact sciences are educated to doctorate level, earn around 1,200 pesos per month, and are barred from taking on additional employment in the private sector.

The lack of a law to help finance education is compounded by the problem of the control of schools having passed over to the provinces of the interior, many of which are in bankruptcy.

This transfer means extra costs of 1.3 billion dollars.