The problem of education in Bolivia is not a recent problem, but something that has been dragging on since the creation of the Republic in 1825. Although it is understandable that in the first years of life of the Republic it has been difficult to solve this problem due to lack of budget, but 197 years of sovereign life have already passed and none of the 67 presidents has been able to solve the problem of education, not even in the period of economic boom that coincided with most of the Government of Evo Morales.
Currently, fiscal education is going through one of its worst moments and, proof of this, is the march of teachers from the urban area at the seat of government demanding more items and, of course, the strike of school activities called on March 18 past. However, the lack of items is not the only element that constitutes the problem of education, since there are other elements that are also part of the problem. These are, lack of quotas for students, lack of infrastructure, schools in poor condition, lack of furniture, lack of equipment, lack of biosafety supplies against covid and other things that are necessary to achieve quality education. All of these are indicators that make us understand that education is not a priority for the central government, nor for the departmental and municipal governments, as established in Art. 77 numeral I of the CPE, where it says that: “The Education constitutes a supreme function and primary financial responsibility of the State, which has the indeclinable obligation to sustain, guarantee and manage it.
Then, we can deduce that, in this article of the CPE, the degree of responsibility and the obligation that the State has towards fiscal education is summarized. And, on the other hand, we can read the philosophical principle of the State regarding education. That is, the way in which education is conceived as a supreme function and primary financial responsibility. However, despite all this, education in Bolivia remains a very worrying problem for society as a whole. Well, just as there are many teachers without items, there are also many students who have not been able to enroll due to lack of quotas, and, of course, there are also parents who cannot pay their children’s monthly fees. These problems are the daily bread in the different educational units.
However, the most pathetic of all this is that none of the competent authorities of the different levels of government care one iota about the problem of education. For example, the Ministry of Education does nothing to solve the problem of the items, since it is its competence; and the municipal governments, which are responsible for providing, financing and guaranteeing the basic services, infrastructure, furniture, educational material and equipment of the Educational Units of Regular Education, Alternative and Special Education, as well as the District and Nucleus Directorates, in their jurisdiction, they do not do anything to alleviate the problem of education.
For this reason, when parents want to enroll their children, the magic word they use is: there is no quota. And voila, this solves the problem. Finally, we know that the only ones affected by this problem are the students, parents and teachers who do not have items; except the authorities. That is why education is the way it is and nobody cares. However, things would be very different if this problem had affected the authorities, since there probably would have been no problem in education. Meanwhile, we stay with our problems and hope that one day our authorities will give education the importance it deserves.
