Last Wednesday, the Chamber of Deputies repealed the European Union financing agreement for the program to support the education system in Paraguay. The project passed to the Chamber of Senators for its study.
The financing, which consists of US$38 million, has been controversial because, according to conservative social groups, it would be tied to a gender-focused educational transformation plan. The Ministry of Education has denied that the plan has these intentions and the President of the Republic, Mario Abdo Benítez, declared to the media that his government will not promote gender ideology in schools and colleges and that he will veto the project of thrive. .
Óscar Stark, general director of Administration and Finance of the Ministry of Education (MEC), regretted that the repeal of that law had been partially sanctioned because it has nothing to do with the Educational Transformation Plan.
He informed that this plan is financed with FEEI resources that are G. 23 billion that were approved in 2017 and already have a high execution.
“What was repealed has nothing to do with the National Plan for Educational Transformation. These are resources for budget support from the MEC for 21 million euros and for complementary aid another 17 million euros that the European Union executes directly ”, he stated.
Of the 21 million euros, 5 million were already executed last year, 8 million this year and 8 million next year. This will affect expenses that we already made in the case of this year and expenses that we will make next year, and expenses that we will make next year for purchases of school supplies, school lunches, school meals in general, emergency physical infrastructure .
This is part of the proposed budget. Since 2009 our country receives this type of cooperation from the European Union to the Ministry of Education and they were executed according to need.
“This will impact the disbursement of this year and next year. More than G. 100 billion and they are resources that we will not count on. This will affect next year as there is no time to do any rescheduling for this year. We are going to have to stop providing lunch in the middle of the year or so when resources will run out,” he noted.
This will affect 1.8 million dishes served by 2023 that should have been destined for some 45,000 students.
Finally, he pointed out that they are confident that the repeal will not prosper in the Senate, taking into account that our country must triple its investment in education in the next 15 years, that is, go from US$1,000 million to US$3,000 million.
