The Argentine educational system has a good reputation. But now new president Javier Milei is going overboard with drastic austerity measures.

“Without science there is no future” – demonstration against Milei in Buenos Aires Photo: Natacha Pisarenko/ap

BUENOS AIRES taz | I couldn't even get to Plaza de Mayo,” says Guadalupe Seia. The professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Buenos Aires's eyes light up when she talks about the recent nationwide university protest, the Federal University March. “Within a few blocks you couldn't go any further.” For a good two hours she stood on the diagonal that leads to the Plaza de Mayo, in front of the presidential palace. And yet. “It was incredibly moving,” she says.

Two weeks ago around 2 million people took to the streets in Argentina. It was one of the largest mobilizations since the end of the dictatorship in 1983 and in the 40 years of democracy. In the capital, Buenos Aires alone, an estimated half a million people marched from the Congress building to the presidential palace. It was an intergenerational, interclass and interpolitical manifestation of the free public educational system in Argentina.

This was requested by the University Council of Public Universities. “Public education is a pillar of Argentine society,” explains sociologist Guadalupe Seia. And libertarian President Javier Milei shook that up with his rigorous austerity policies.

After taking office in December, Milei simply copied the 2023 state budget and extended it by one year. Although allocations for the respective areas remained constant in absolute terms, annual inflation of more than 280 percent had caused a sharp loss in the value of budget funds, with a direct impact on the salaries and wages financed with them. Milei fueled the rapid rise in inflation, which was already rampant before his tenure, by devaluing the peso against the dollar. These measures are part of his neoliberal austerity program, which has also been approved by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

“In the last four months alone the inflation rate was 40 percent, but there was only an eight percent wage increase,” explains Seia. It's now common for colleagues to sell the dollars they've saved or borrow money just to make ends meet until the end of the month.

However, it was not the precarious salary situation that had existed for many years that forced the university council to act. University governors warned that universities could close at the end of May. Soon it will no longer be possible to guarantee even the minimum functioning of facilities, especially university hospitals. In some departments, electricity consumption is already being restricted and the lighting in the rooms and the operation of the elevators are being stopped.

Candles in the conference room.

“Yes, there was even talk of closing the department,” says the 36-year-old sociologist, who has been teaching there for ten years. “I brought candles to the conference,” he says. “I didn't know if there was light in the conference room.” Simple things like toilet paper and soap in the toilets or chalk for the blackboard have been missing for months.

Educational policy was the shortest chapter of the electoral program of Javier Milei's La Libertad Avanza party. Nine points are listed in dry sentences that look like a collection of key words. The most specific is the demand for “the abolition of the coercive nature of CSE at all levels of education.” “Comprehensive Sexual Education” was introduced in 2006 against conservative and ecclesiastical resistance. It is mainly about sex education, but also about gender identity issues.

Otherwise, there is talk of competition between educational institutions through the “Educational Check Voucher System.” “In the ideal world there is a bonus system, you study and I give you the bonuses for it. “You can choose if you want to go to a public or private institution,” Milei explained during the election campaign. This means that no one has to become a victim of an institution “that indoctrinates me with Marxist garbage,” she added.

What Milei takes up is a proposal by neoliberal economist Milton Friedman in 1955, which is based on the principle of supply and demand. Instead of funding the supply side, such as schools and universities, funds are transferred to the demand side, i.e. students. The expected side effect is greater competition between educational institutions, which should ensure better teaching offers.

The Ministry of Education is now a secretariat

As one of his first acts as president, Milei halved the number of ministries. Education is now one of the five ministries under the newly created Ministry of Human Capital. This means that Argentina no longer has a ministry of education for the first time since the dictatorship of Juan Carlos Onganía (1966-1970). But it doesn't just affect education. Milei is committed to harsh austerity policies in all areas.

“Fortunately, the provinces are responsible for the schools,” says primary school teacher Juan Pérez from a school in the La Matanza district, Buenos Aires province. He prefers not to read his real name or his school name in the newspaper. “In the last four months, the provincial government has increased our salaries by just over 50 per cent,” he says. That's only slightly higher than the inflation rate, but at least they haven't lost purchasing power.

Pérez has Axel Kicillof, the governor of the province of Buenos Aires, to thank for this. The former Minister of Economy of former President Cristina Kirchner (2007-2015) is one of the politicians of a generally weak and fragmented left-wing opposition who still holds an influential position. It remains to be seen how long he will be able to finance this salary policy. Finally, President Milei cut off funding to the provinces from the National Teacher Incentive Fund, or Fonid for short.

So far, the state fund has financed 10 percent of the salaries of more than 1.6 million teachers in public primary and secondary education and adult education systems. The lack of funds is especially putting financially weak provinces in trouble. When asked about this, President Javier Milei responded briefly: “Education is the responsibility of the governors, it is a problem of the provinces.”

Education vouchers for individual months

“The Fonid is an achievement achieved with a lot of effort by teachers and their unions,” says teacher Juan Pérez. “My uncle was there at the time.” In April 1997, they set up the “White Teaching Tent” in front of the Congress building in Buenos Aires and protested against the austerity policies of the then neoliberal government. of President Carlos Menem, even with a hunger strike. More than 1,400 teachers from all over Argentina took turns participating. After 1,003 days of protests, the government relented. “Fonid was created in December 1998,” says this 32-year-old man, who has been teaching for eight years.

In addition to rigorous savings targets, the government's education policy includes a type of subsidy policy. Middle-class families who can no longer pay their children's school fees in private schools due to the rapidly rising cost of living can apply for educational vouchers worth the equivalent of 25 euros for May, June and July. For low-income families, the government has increased the one-time subsidy for school supplies from 15 to about 65 euros.

However, a clear ideological perspective can be seen in the austerity policy, warns sociologist Guadalupe Seia. “The government has launched an attack on public education as the space in which solidarity action and the free exchange of information should be prioritized and in which the government suspects a more left-wing involvement,” she says. Public education is a right guaranteed by the Constitution, Seia stated and was satisfied with the demonstration two weeks ago: “Two million people told it clearly to the president.”