The director of Educational consensus, Fausto RomeoHe warns that the Venezuelan education system wobbles between the drop in registration of private schools, the leakage of teachers and the precariousness of public schools. Alerts that “without motivated and well paid teachers there will be no way to rescue educational quality”
The Venezuelan education system compass continues to mark turbulence. After several years in which many families fled from official schools to private classrooms, “mosaic schedule” and collapsed services, today the flow begins to be invested: the cost of schooling pushes thousands of students back to the public sector or subsidized schools. The signal is not less: when paying monthly compete with market, wins the fridge.
Fausto Romeo, Director of Educational Consensus, summarizes it without surroundings: “We are seeing a return to the public by pressure from the pocket and for the promise of dining room and full day.” The turn is preceded by hard months in box for schools. «Money reached 40% in March; Today it is between 10% and 15% because to register you have to be solvent, ”he explains.
Even so, the sector map shrinks: “We went from 5,100 private schools in 2017 to about 3,800 last year” and in 2025 there are specific closures“Including a school that did not survive 60% delinquency.”
These definitions were part of a conversation with Romeo in Night d, The program of SuchWhichwhere the private share in the system also updated: from the historical peak close to 30%(2015-2017) would have dropped to “15%-18%” of the total registration. The diaspora made its part – whole family left the country – but the recent turn accelerates the daily economy: since the beginning of the year, more payments are required in bolivars at the BCV rate, and the volatility of the exchange rate disarms any budget. «80% of the monthly payments were paid in currencies until December; With Bolivars, between day 1 and 31 there can be a differential of 20%, ”he says.
The calculation of the school quota, adds, is cooked with two fires: 70% labor costs (salaries, bonds, cestatics, liabilities, parafiscal and now the contribution to pensions) and 30% operating expenses (water, light, cleaning with disparate rates, maintenance). «A base worker cannot be below 200 integral dollars and many schools try that the teacher Ronde 250-300. If you don’t adjust, you lose your people; If you adjust too much, you lose your students«, Romeo synthesizes on the knot.
The comparison with the official sector reveals the other arm of the clamp. “It is difficult to demand training in AI or robotics to a public teacher who totals 170-180 dollars between salary and bonds,” he says. And even when the Ministry promises rehabilitations, dining room and day extended in some high schools, the substantive question is how to sustain daily assistance, water and food: «As long as there is food, the assistance goes up. If not, the father prioritizes the passage or that the chamo helps at home ».
The teacher deficit aggravates the picture. Romeo speaks of “critical lack” in mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology, and releases a fact that hurts: “There was a cohort where in all the country’s pedagogical only a math teacher graduated.” The replacement of places is being patched with “non -teaching professionals” (engineers, communicators, etc.) that then study an abbreviated pedagogical component: “We do not need the chemist to learn to be chemical; We need to learn to teach ». In his opinion, the seed is sown before: “Without vocational guidance from 1st Baccalaureate we continue to graduate high school graduates.”
On the fulfillment of the school calendar, Romeo points out that many private schools continue to finish classes in early June and not at the end of July, which leaves weeks without real content. «The contents cannot end on June 10; The calendar should be used to learn, not only to repair »emphasizes. This practice, it clarifies, is not linked to the mosaic schedule but to an extended custom in part of the private sector that remains effective learning time.
The registration of the public is not, by itself, a triumph of the State. It is a fragility thermometer. If the official schools receive more students without resolving salaries, services and dining rooms, the overload will expel through another door what today enters through needs from the pocket. And if the private ones hold the payroll at the expense of losing students, the ecosystem is impoverished in a double way: less options for families and less qualified jobs.
The departure, Romeo raises, demands a broad and pragmatic pact: “Without company, commerce, universities and communities within the school there is no possible comeback.” This covenant includes reorder the curriculum (strong and diversified basic cycle with work outputs), formalize internships with companies according to the productive territory, and professionalize trades via inceles. And, above all, return to the basics: teachers with decent income, schools with water and children who eat. «While a chamo decides between going to classes or cleaning windshields, we are losing. And when the school loses, it loses the country ».
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmnl2wyatam
*Also read: Venezuela starts the school year with old problems and new official promises
*Journalism in Venezuela is exercised in a hostile environment for the press with dozens of legal instruments arranged for the punishment of the word, especially the laws “against hatred”, “against fascism” and “against blockade.” This content was written taking into consideration the threats and limits that, consequently, have been imposed on the dissemination of information from within the country.
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