They denounce that 20% of Buenos Aires schools have building problems and 10% do not have heating
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20% of the state-run schools in the City of Buenos Aires have building problems and 10% do not have heating, teachers, students, members of cooperatives and trade unionists who make up the Multisectorial for Public Schools denounced this Monday, who claimed ” concrete solutions” to the government of Horacio Rodríguez Larreta.
According to a map of educational establishments with infrastructure problems, About 200 buildings have leaks, falling masonry, closed bathrooms, electrical wiring problems and lack of water supply“which affects the normal development of school activity and puts members of educational communities at risk.”
Also, a total of 112 public schools out of a total of 950 do not have heatingeither due to lack of gas supply or because the devices do not work, which harms more than 100,000 students during the winter months with low temperatures, according to the report of the Multisector for Public Schools.
Most of the school buildings considered at risk or in dangerous conditions are in the southern neighborhoods of the City, such as Villa Lugano, Soldati, Barracas or La Boca, and in the case of lack of heating, 40 percent corresponds to primary level, where girls and boys from 6 to 12 years old attend, and another 10 percent are kindergartens.
In the presentation of the mapping, carried out at the gates of the Superior Normal School Number 4 in the neighborhood of Caballito, the deputy secretary of the Union of Education Workers (UTE), Eduardo Lópezdenounced a “permanent” reduction in educational investment during the governments of Mauricio Macri and Horacio Rodríguez Larreta” in the city and warned that “in the last 15 years it went from 27 to 17 percent.”
“The right hates that in public schools knowledge is not a commodity, because the boys are subjects of law. They attack us because we educate and include. During these 15 years of management they could not break us, “said the union leader.
Speaking to Télam, López asked himself: “Why do they constantly mistreat teachers and not mistreat the judges and prosecutors of the City?” and immediately replied: “Because the Judicial Power of the City safeguards privileges and the educational system extends rights.”
In this framework, the deputy secretary of UTE ratified that on Wednesday Starting at 5:00 p.m., a march will be held from the corner of Ayacucho and Córdoba to the Buenos Aires Legislature “in defense of public education.”
In relation to the state of Buenos Aires public schools, the referent of Cooperators in Movement, Pablo Cesaroniwarned that “we are in a building emergency” and asserted that “the situation is worse than before the pandemic”, after which he maintained that infrastructure problems “affect normal school activity and put the community at risk”.
“There is an abandonment of public education and this emergency is the responsibility of the City government, they have to give answers. We urgently need a work plan and an increase in the budget”, he asserted in statements to this agency.
For its part, Pablo Francisco, Secretary of Labor Conditions and Environment of UTEdenounced that during the administrations of Macri and Larreta “more than 60 percent of the budget for school infrastructure was never executed” and warned that during the first quarter of this year only “10 percent of the budget for school infrastructure and 10 percent of the budget for maintenance.
The leader told Télam that the community of school 2 of Villa Lugano made a “blanket” this Monday due to the lack of gas that prevents heating in the buildingwhich adds to the problem of rats, while he warned that the collapse of a work adjoining a school in Villa Ortúzar that occurred this weekend and whose danger had been denounced by the cooperating association, “could have been a tragedy” .
“Enough marketing, we need concrete solutions. There is no more time, Buenos Aires is the richest city in the country. We demand that Larreta and (Education Minister Soledad) Acuña listen to the community,” she claimed.
?️ “Despite the government’s attempts to bend us, we are standing, and when Larreta is a memory, schools will continue educating, resisting and dreaming”, @eduardolopezute pic.twitter.com/MphSBgmPTc
— UTE (@utertera) June 27, 2022
Finally, Zoe Varela, general secretary of the Student Center of the Nini Marshall Theater School demanded “political decision” of the Buenos Aires government to solve the infrastructure problems of educational establishments and warned that “you cannot study like this.”
“What quality school do you want to build like this?” the student wondered, and then asked the Buenos Aires authorities to “demonstrate that the media statements they make about education are true political decisions and fix the schools.”
