The far-right government of Javier Milei is increasing cuts in education. Contrary to the positive evaluation that Argentine society has of its professors and researchers, the president plans to violate laws vital for the survival of the educational and scientific sectors and to veto the increase in the budget of public universities. The massive mobilization of last April was repeated this October 2 in the main cities of the country, at the call of university unions, rectorates, social movements, opposition parties and organizations defending human rights. ‘man.
“No to the veto”, shouted an incessant wave of people in front of the Congress of the city of Buenos Aires, and in front of the mirror in Rosario, Córdoba, Mendoza and Mar del Plata among the different points of Argentina. The University of Buenos Aires Teachers’ Union (Feduba) estimates that more than two million people marched across the country and a million in front of Congress in downtown Buenos Aires.
The ultra president still has a few hours left before the deadline and he can veto the university funding law, as he has confirmed he will do. However, the ruling party could lose the battle in Congress and ratify this standard with the vote of two-thirds of its members in both chambers. The law plans to update the budget items for 2023, based on inflation of 211% for that year, then to apply a bimonthly increase based on the evolution of the consumer price index. Salaries are to be recomposed from December 1 of last year based on the cumulative change in inflation and will be updated month by month.
Before Congress, Yamila Segura, 25, speaks in front of elDiario.es his defense of public education with more resources. “I graduated two months ago from UBA, in educational sciences, I am here because I defend quality public education and because there are many people who cannot access education if the State does not pay for it. I graduated on time, so all these verses about there being people enrolled who aren’t studying are a lie.
The president has called for audits of national universities to track “made-up students,” which would impact the university budget. But the budget has long been adjusted for inflation, so student numbers would not impact it. Milei presented a budget for 2025 linked to the “need for a zero deficit” which, in practice, will crystallize a definancing that has been occurring since the coming to power in December of the one who defines himself as “a mole who destroys the State of the Interior.”
Daniel Filmus, former Minister of Education, Science and Technology in the governments of Néstor Kirchner and Alberto Fernández, explains to elDiario.es the setback that this represents. “Article 27 of the budget that Milei submitted to Congress for approval proposes the suspension of the three funding laws for education, science and technology that were passed by all political forces. This has never happened in Argentina. The 0.2% of the budget dictated by the law on technical education in 2005 will not be respected; “The 6% of GDP provided for by the education financing law in 2006 will not be achieved, nor the 0.45% provided for by the science financing law for 2025.”
“It’s more than an adjustment policy”
The chainsaw of the ultra-presidential president has been active these nine months, with falling salaries and budgetary asphyxiation. Filmus provides projected data to the Ibero-American Center for Research in Science, Technology and Innovation, which it directs. “The great defunding occurs between 2023 and 2024: the science budget has fallen by 30%, and that of education by more than 40%, in real terms. It is much more than an adjustment policy, it is the destruction of education, science and technology. For the Austrian economic school, the state does not have to take charge of these areas.”
It is not only a question of numbers, but also of ideological positioning. The College Funding Act represents only 0.14% of GDP, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Vice-president Victoria Villarruel denounced the existence of an “academic oligarchy” and an “ideological indoctrination” which “penetrates the minds of students”.
Villarruel, who studied at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) Law School, said that “more than 20 years ago, thinking differently was stigmatized, penalized and sometimes punished by the failure of a matter “. And he added: “I am one of the students who suffered from teachers more concerned with supporting their ideology and dogmas than with imparting to us the knowledge necessary to be able to function successfully in our professions. »
The Faculty of Law of the University of Buenos Aires responded in a statement: “As a public institution with a rich tradition of commitment to democracy, critical thinking and respect for the plurality of opinions, we consider it essential to clarify that the Faculty of Law UBA has been and continues to be a training space where free and constructive debate is promoted. Far from repressing different thoughts, the participation of all students is actively encouraged in our classrooms, ensuring an environment in which dialogue and mutual respect prevail.
The thought expressed by Milei is to declare war on science and technology
Carlos Tomada, former Minister of Labor of Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández and consulting professor at UBA, highlights elDiario.es that the current government has declared war on science and research. “The idea expressed by Milei is to declare war on science and technology. And this has economic effects: the reduction in the budgets of national universities, which include the salaries of teachers who teach but also do research, and the reduction in subsidies from Conicet (National Council for Scientific and Technical Research).”
The government underuses the scientific budget and deactivates the role of the National Agency for the Promotion of Research, Technological Development and Innovation, which in previous governments promoted a good part of the projects. A policy that invites a brain drain.
The worrying situation of scientists in Argentina is reflected in the message posted on the X network by Alejandro Díaz Caro, expert in quantum computing from Conicet, who explains why he is going to France. “I came back ten years ago with the Raíces program. Today I leave with the Motosierra program,” said the mathematician about the Network of Argentine Researchers and Scientists Abroad program created under the government of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and which encouraged the return of researchers to the country .
Milei attacked scientists, justifying cuts to the sector by 2025. “The so-called scientists and intellectuals who believe that having a university degree makes them superior beings and that we must therefore all subsidize their vocation,” he said. It should be remembered that Argentina has three Nobel Prize winners in science: Bernardo Houssay, Luis Federico Leloir and César Milstein, all three trained in public universities.
