Many of us have suspected for a long time that the struggle to comply with the assignment of 4% of GDP to education had not obtained the expected results, and the data that has been revealed and those that remain to be discovered confirm this, and that is that the easiest part was achieving the allocation of resources, the biggest challenge is that they be managed in a transparent, rational and effective manner, measuring their results to ensure that more resources translate into objective improvements.
If we summarize the results of almost 10 years since the transfer of this percentage began in 2013, basically the allocation of greater resources has served to give more powers to the ADP, which has concentrated its efforts on obtaining salary improvements for its members by use of the strike mechanism with little concern for the quantity and quality of class hours given to students, as evidenced by their resistance to returning to classrooms after the first stage of the pandemic, to convert the ministers into presidential candidates or aspirants thanks to the power that derives from the management of the largest State budget by the entity that has the most employees and makes the most contracts, and so that schools have been built, which, according to what has been more than evidenced, were carried out without planning and in conditions that gave rise to corruption, extortion that even caused suicides, and trafficking in money. fluences through which he benefited acolytes of the authorities in power in the purchase of land, many of which were not suitable.
The result has been a long list of unfinished constructions due to different wrongdoings, some of which it seems will not be possible to complete, addendums to contracts that are impossible to execute due to exceeding the limit of 25% increase in the amounts awarded that required the approval of a special law to be able to get out of the crossroads and recurring complaints regarding the tenders carried out by the Ministry of Education, especially recently because there is a different attitude regarding the treatment of public contracts that has encouraged many to denounce, which some Before they did not dare to do it, or they understood it was useless.
Faced with this scenario, society cannot continue to be the fierce guardian of the provision of the considerable resources of 4% of GDP, and has to go a step further, analyzing the results of this conquest, questioning what is wrong and demanding corrective measures. First, reflecting on what the growth of this percentage tied to GDP means and rethinking how it would be rational to adjust it, demanding that an educational reform plan be discussed and approved focused on improving the quality of the system, which has been aggravated by the pandemic, because as some studies in Latin America point out, an average of 11.7 months of classes were lost, more than twice as much as in Europe and the United States, and we are doing nothing to remedy it, because the limited commitments of the Pact signed in 2014 are more well a catalog of good will since they were too influenced by the ADP, whose leaders were important members of the leadership of the then official party ial.
The appointment of a new minister who has not been a political leader and with a recognized track record as an educator, and previous experience in the institution, as well as deputy ministers with high professional and moral credentials should be the right occasion for this change of attitude in the citizen struggle, so that with the same firmness with which the allocation of 4% to education was demanded and its full compliance is defended, its use is demanded to be evaluated up to now, and that it be adequately planned for the future, defining a plan of a route towards excellence that is measured based on the fulfillment of objectives, so that we can manage to raise the low quality of our educational system, which will not be achieved with money alone, as has been abundantly demonstrated.
