In October 2018, a little less than five years ago, I published in this same space, along with my colleague at the Academy National of Education, Dr. Alieto Guadagnia note titled the same as the present one.
It dealt with the impact on the education in our country of the modification to Article 7 of Law 24,521sanctioned by the legislature in October 2015: “All people who pass secondary education can freely and unrestrictedly enter undergraduate education at the higher education level…”.
By virtue of it, as we argued in that column: “It is common to enter our universities with little preparation and without any effort. Failure is foreseeable, our country has many more university students than Mexico, Colombia, Chile and Brazilbut far fewer graduates due to high dropouts.”
By way of illustration, let us recall the case of Brazilwhere during two Sundays of the month of November the National High School Exam (ENEM), through which the knowledge of students who graduate from secondary school is evaluated. More than 600 higher education institutions use candidate performance in the ENEM as a parameter in their selection process.
Many of the young people who, for example, do not qualify to study medicine in the neighboring country usually move to our country. The magnitude of this fact was illustrated, years ago, by the decision of the University of La Matanza to implement a mandatory course in Spanish Language and Latin American Literature for entrants They did not speak Spanish. The Rector, when explaining, at that time, the reasons for such a decision, pointed out that “a significant number of Brazilians had enrolled in the medical career. More than 500 only considering the last completed. We began to have serious difficulties because they don’t speak Spanish correctly, they speak in Portuñol. And the study is delayed.
The two sides of the coin. Is not an evaluation at the end of high school preferable to encourage study during it? All European nations have implemented it. For example in France the test was established by Napoleon at the beginning of the 19th century. So do countries as dissimilar as Japan, Korea, Cuba, Israel, Ecuador, Vietnam, Chile, Costa Rica, Colombia, Mexico, Syria, China, Algeria, Brazil, and any other country that the reader can imagine.
In this regard, on June 5, the National Academy of Education issued a Declaration titled “Education is a Priority.” It points out that: “In the context of the current educational crisis, the National Academy of Education urges political parties and candidates in the upcoming elections to include the priority of education in their platforms, detailing the public policies that they commit to apply if they are elected”. To this end, it considers eleven priorities to be unavoidable. One of them consists precisely in: “Guiding students who graduate from secondary education to continue their training, empowering universities to establish the conditions for admission, respecting autonomy, for the benefit of the diversity of the system and promoting essential remedial actions to facilitate integration and learning, for which the art.7 of law 24,521”.
It’s time to sit down and admit reality. The failure of thousands of young Argentines who spend years in universities from which they will not graduate is highly costly. As well pointed out Alieto Guadagni: “We should not be surprised by these negative results, which are the result of ongoing policies that directly harm the future of employment, mainly for the poorest. There are more than 100 countries on the entire planeteven those communists, who propose selective income”.
Can the rest of the world be wrong? Of course not. The modification of the art. 7 of law 24,521 It would avoid harming thousands of young people who lose valuable years of their lives doing studies that will never be completed, instead of being trained to function successfully in an infinity of trades required by our society. Worst scenario, hard to imagine.
under the electoral process that has begunit would be opportune to know the opinion of the candidates in the face of the educational crisis that our country is suffering, but no longer with emotional speeches but with well-founded opinions on concrete proposals such as the one raised here.
Source: Ambito
David William is a talented author who has made a name for himself in the world of writing. He is a professional author who writes on a wide range of topics, from general interest to opinion news. David is currently working as a writer at 24 hours worlds where he brings his unique perspective and in-depth research to his articles, making them both informative and engaging.
