The veto of the University Financing law was one of the topics discussed during the meeting, according to Ámbito. The general secretary of the UOCRA, Gerardo Martínez, said: “We are committed to dialogue without ruling out measures. “We want to make the national government reason,” He said and remarked: “The march is not negotiated.”
For its part, Daniel Riccirepresentative of the Federation of University Teachers, emphasized the call for the mobilization next Wednesday and stressed that the march is “in defense of the entire public university.” “Beyond our salaries, we understand that the public university is pride for all Argentines.”
For the teachers’ union representative, the Government’s salary offer is insufficient: “A 5.8% salary increase compared to a 70% loss is less than 10%. What we want is an installment plan that tells us how we are going to recover that 70% that we lost to inflation. And clarify that we do not want a salary increase, we simply want to recover what we lost due to inflation.
Q: What response did you get in this meeting?
Daniel Ricci: So far we do not have any positive response that resolves the issue. The only thing is that they will call us to a new joint meeting for October 7, so we will wait there for the proposal that the Government brings us. But, as I said before, we ratify the march of October 2 because the march also exceeds the salary issue.”
For the Government it is a political march
For its part, sources from the Casa Rosada, They insist that the motivation for the march is not a salary claim. “We offered them the increase they requested and they still march. This shows that the cause is political,” they assert. With the increase offered (5.8% plus 1 percentage point), the evolution of teachers’ real salaries would exceed that of state teachers.
Regarding financing for university expenses, with numbers, the Government states that:
- The National State allocates 74% of the educational budget to Universities, matching the investment in AUH.
- Investment in Universities has a relative weight similar to that of the AUH (7%) within the total budget of the Ministry of Human Capital.
- In terms of scope, the AUH impacts 4 million beneficiaries while the university budget reaches 710,466 regular students.
The Government insists that “University entities, despite being obliged by law, are not accountable. “No one knows how, where and what the allocated money has been and is being spent.”
Furthermore, they maintain that, beyond the item assigned in the national budget for operating expenses and payment of salaries, the National Universities receive discretionary transfers from the National State: in 2023 alone they received more than 300 billion pesos (in pesos August 2024).
Source: Ambito
