The growing tension over public education between university students and the government of Javier Milei continues to intensify, with a weekly national strike of teachers. But also, in response to the widespread discontent over the funding cuts and loss of teacher paystudents and workers from various faculties of the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) decided to take their protest to the heart of Argentine politics: the Plaza de Mayo.
Under the slogan of making the educational and budgetary crisis visible, next Tuesday, October 22 a j will be madedecoration of public classes in front of the Casa Rosada. This, in a clear sign of challenge to the policies of the president, who did not give in when it came to cuts and vetoed the education budgeta policy that was later validated by Congress.
This measure was promoted by the Teachers Union Association (AGD) after an assembly in the Faculty of Psychologywhere it was decided to take a step further in the claims for the increase in the university budget. Several students present also supported the decision.
This day is not an isolated event, but part of a fight plan that includes a week of strikes, street closures and occupation of university buildings. Emblematic faculties of the UBA such as Psychology, Philosophy and Letters, Law and Architecture, They maintain the seizure of their facilities, joining 25 other national universities that have implemented this measure.
In addition, on Wednesday the 23rd there will be another day of public classes in front of the National Congresswith the aim of continuing to make the conflict visible and pressure for government responses. The unknown is how the authorities will react.
The word of the main leader of the AGD
The general secretary of the AGD, Ileana Celottowho was present at the assembly, pointed out that the actions respond “to a process of definancing that seriously affects public universities.”
“We lost 63 percentage points to inflationand our salary conditions are becoming increasingly unsustainable,” he stated, adding that universities “face a budgetary asphyxiation that had already occurred in previous administrations, but that under the current government it worsened“.
The educational community denounces that the president’s decisions, such as the veto of a bill that proposed a salary increase for teachers and non-teachers, and the authorization of audits in universities by the General Sindicature of the Nation (SIGEN), generated a confrontational climate unprecedented. “They accuse us of wanting to close universities, but what we are seeing is a policy that systematically defunds and weakens them,” declared Celotto.
The general secretary also asserted: “At the UBA we never said, as President Milei claims, that they were going to close the universities. Yeah we said that they were going to suffocate them and defund them, as we see they are doing.”
“It is enough to listen to the dean of Agronomy when he says that more than 30 professors left due to low salaries. Or the director of the Hospital de Clínicas who described the salaries of doctors, which there are much lower than those they earn in any other hospital of the City of Buenos Aires,” he stated.
The conflict also escalated with the request for the resignation of several officials from the Ministry of Education, including the Minister of Human Capital, Sandra Pettovello, the Secretary of Education, Carlos Torrendell, and the Undersecretary of University Policies, Alejandro Álvarez. Teachers and unions denounce that they did not receive responses to their demands for salary adjustments and assure that working conditions are unsustainable.
Source: Ambito
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