“What we are seeing is that, in the face of the pandemic, there was a way out in favor of public investment -in infrastructure- and a significant decline in wages. Comparing the different programs of the national Ministry of Education, a lower relative weight, or an adjustment, is seen in the universities as well as in other programs that are linked to salary expenses”, Says the economist Javier Curcio, who has just finished a report on educational financing for the Observatorio Argentinos por la Educación.
The report shows that education is assigned for 2021 more silver than what was used in 2020. The funds from the Ministry of Education will be 4.8% of the national budget, while last year it was 4%.
But within the programs of the Ministry of Education there are winners and losers. If you look at how silver is planned to be invested in 2021, you will see a very strong increase in spending for the construction of new classrooms and kindergartens (1,625% increase) or in the implementation of a digital educational platform for the entire country, the Juana Manso Federal Plan (571%).
And on the other hand you will see a cut in those initiatives linked to salary expenses. Faced with an estimated inflation of over 40% for 2021, the university system was assigned a rise of only 32.1%; to the Fonid (fund to help the provinces to pay teachers’ salaries) 13.8%; and for “core activities” (expenses related to political leadership), 8.3%.
The data comes from the report made by Curcio -researcher at the IIEP BAIRES (UBA and CONICET) and director of the Department of Economics of the Faculty of Economic Sciences of the UBA-, together with Víctor Volman and Federico Braga. The information was taken from the open budget of the Ministry of Economy.
At this point, it is convenient to make a distinction as to how educational investment in Argentina is made up. Three out of every four pesos that are invested in the education system come from the provinces, which are the ones that have administered the schools since the 1990s. The rest is left to the national Ministry of Education. And most of those resources go to universities, which, in turn, spend almost all of it on salaries.
The Observatory’s work shows that, of everything executed by the Ministry of Education in 2020, 75% went to universities. But this year it will be less in percentage terms: 61.8%. In numbers, they will be 232,820.56 million pesos, plus an additional 40,000 million from the same at the end of the year.
Consulted by Clarion, Secretary of University Policies Jaime Perczyk said that, looking at this historically, what there was in previous years was the complete disappearance of some programs, -such as kindergartens or educational technology- that they are recovering. And that, therefore, now appear to be growing more proportionally with respect to the rest. While denying that there is an adjustment for universities, if the parity of 7 and 10% at the end of last year is properly considered.
Rodolfo Tecchi, president for the Peronist sector of the National Interuniversity Council (CIN) – rectors of public universities – agrees in the diagnosis. “The analysis of the university budget has different dimensions and especially when one makes an analysis between 2019 and 2021. We came from the cancellation of the 2018 public works program – that was already 3,000 million pesos that since 2018 were not executed by decision of the the government of Macri- and with a number of months of unpaid expenses, such as agreements for careers and new venues. All of this was brought up to date in 2020, the public works program was recovered, which involves 60 works that began to be tendered and financed again, ”he says.
“There was a contraction of all the games during the second half of the Cambiemos government. What we seek to evaluate with this study is how priorities were readjusted in the context of the pandemic. And we see a decline in some functions of education and an increase in aspects such as early childhood infrastructure and connectivity, ”says Curcio.
Early childhood, a claim from the experts that takes years
For years experts have been pointing out the importance of betting on the initial level. Various studies show that the training of boys during the first years of life explains, to a large extent, the educational and work trajectories they have in the future. There is also talk about the need to build new rooms and gardens in the country, due to the limited supply that there is for the most vulnerable sectors.
The current budget of the Ministry of Education seems to take it into account, as long as it is executed. With 31,994.65 million pesos budgeted, the program “Building Strengthening of Kindergartens” leads the first place in terms of nominal increase, with 1,625%. And with 7.3% of the total, it is among the programs that receive the most resources.
“For us, the construction, renovation and expansion of nursery schools is a priority. To achieve full coverage of girls and boys aged 3, 4 and 5 by 2030, it is necessary to include about 400,000 in the 3-year-old wards and 79,000 in the 4-year-olds. In the 0 to 3-year stage, the deficit of vacancies is greater ”, he says to Clarion Rut Kuitca, president of OMEP Argentina.
And it demands that the National State accompany the provinces with the payment of salaries. “Given that they are the ones who are in charge of creating the positions, and depending on the inequality of resources, to cover the new rooms it will be necessary for the Nation to accompany in the creation of these teaching positions and their initial and ongoing training”.
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#Resources #kindergartens #universities
source https://pledgetimes.com/resources-go-up-for-kindergartens-and-down-for-universities/
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