Unions, human rights organizations and Buenos Aires legislators criticized the educational policy of the Government of the City of Buenos Aires and the “poor quality” of the food delivered to schools, in the context of the death of an 11-year-old student from a school in the 21-24 neighborhood.
Edward Lopeztrade union secretary of CTERA, general secretary of CTA Ciudad and deputy general secretary of UTE, told Télam that “it is necessary to strengthen food, snacks and school canteens”
Lopez emphasized that in the area where the eleven-year-old girl lived, the school orientation team (EOE) was “dismantled” by the Buenos Aires government.
“In district 5 there are seven EOE professionals to attend to the problems of more than 15,000 students,” remarked the union secretary of CTERA.
The head of UTE criticized the head of the Buenos Aires Government, Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, and to the Minister of Education of the district, María Soledad Acuña, for the educational policywhich reveals a “emptying in education”.
“Larreta and Acuña never responded to our claims. Both mistreat teachers and ignore us because they cannot bend us,” he added.
The case of the deceased student
The family of the deceased girl, aged 11, had presented a medical certificate in 2021, which indicated the need for a hypercaloric food booster for the girlbut to date there has been no intervention from the Zonal Ombudsman of the Ministry of Education of CABA, according to what the school’s teachers denounced on Tuesday.
On Friday, August 12, the girl arrived at her school, 11, where she became unwell, and was picked up by her parents after an hour, as a result of the fact that the SAME never arrived at the place to assist her.
Last Monday, the girl re-entered the Penna Hospital ward, affected by the same condition, but “died within a few hours,” according to the teachers.
More questions
Jonathan Baldiviesolawyer and founder of the Observatory of the Right to the City, who filed an injunction for the tender of the food delivered in the Buenos Aires schools, remarked that “the City Government carried out a tender without an instance of citizen participation.”
Baldivieso indicated that “within the food delivered there are products of low protein value and that the vast majority are ultra-processed.”
For its part, Ailen Galantea teacher at School 11, pointed out that “we had a meeting with psychologists and part of the educational community.”
“We are thinking about how to deal with this problem and tomorrow we have to face the situation of telling the boys what happened to their partner,” he added.
Galante confirmed that they will hold a caravan for “dignified childhoods” on Monday 22, at 5:00 p.m., which will depart from school 11 to the City Government headquarters.
“We demand justice and we are denouncing that in the richest district in the country education is underfunded and they do not care about children,” the teacher emphasized.
Education sources from the Buenos Aires Government told Télam on Tuesday that there would be no classes at school this Wednesday and that the case of the deceased student is “very delicate” and is “under investigation”, alluding to the fact that the results of the investigation are awaited. autopsy.
Mary Biellideputy of the FDT and vice president of the Education Commission of the Buenos Aires Legislature, stated on her Twitter account that “the death of an 11-year-old girl from the south of the richest city in the country has to be a breaking point.
“We have a collapsed system: school guidance teams that can’t keep up, decimated teams in zonal ombudsmen, primary health care centers with waiting lists and a lousy school feeding service,” warned Bielli.
For its part, the regional one of the City of Buenos Aires of the Permanent Assembly for Human Rights (APDH) He lamented the death of the 11-year-old girl and stressed his concern about the educational policy of the Buenos Aires government.
“The head of government Horacio Rodríguez Larreta and the Minister of Education, Soledad Acuña, have insisted on countless opportunities that education is one of their priorities, however, each of the measures they have implemented translate into a public policy of continuous underfunding”.
And the APDH added that the policies of “precariousness of the working conditions of teachers, abandonment of educational communities, deterioration of school infrastructure, silencing and disregard of the interests of the communities” persist.
In turn, cooperators from several Buenos Aires schools manifested themselves “aware of the absence of the Buenos Aires state, its lack of investment and its lack of interest in public education. We know this because we are the ones who make up for these absences with collective work and scarce resources.”
And they added, “but today we reached the limit: an 11-year-old student from school 11, school district 5, who had requested assistance for five years, died of malnutrition.”
“How much more are we going to normalize the abandonment of the Government of the City of Buenos Aires to public education?”, says a statement from the cooperators of schools 15, 5, 14 DE 10, 9, 12, 21, 19, 6 ,14 DE 16, 15, 4 and Technique 21.
