Javier Milei’s chainsaw against public education has put Argentine universities on a war footing. Demonstrations by students and teachers have increased in recent days, with peaceful takeovers of buildings, open classes in the streets and mobilizations. Teachers’ unions led a national strike this Thursday with 95% follow-up and announced a new 48-hour strike for Monday, October 21.
“I am not going to give in,” warned the far-right president on the LN+ television channel, when asked about the demands relating to the meager salaries of professors, which are causing an exodus of teachers, according to the rectors of the main universities public. in the country. The National Interuniversity Council estimates that 70% of teaching and non-teaching salaries are below the poverty line.
Two weeks ago, Milei vetoed the law on university financing which required the government to update resources, and justified it with the well-known argument that it brought the budget balance under control. Although the Congressional Budget Office calculated an impact of 0.14% of gross domestic product, a majority of lawmakers supported the executive branch in its contested decision.
The reduction will be maintained
With Milei’s arrival at Casa Rosada in December, the Education sector was institutionally downgraded from the Ministry to the Secretariat, with an estimated budget reduction of 50%. The biggest adjustment in ten months of government has fallen on public universities, which depend directly on the Nation, since basic and secondary education (primary and secondary) is the responsibility of the 24 provinces.
Additionally, Milei abolished the National Teachers’ Encouragement Fund, which balanced teachers’ salaries across the country, and eliminated scholarship programs.
At the start of the year, the far-right government extended the 2023 budget without updating it with inflation, which was then 290% over one year (it was 209% over one year in September). This led to a massive mobilization on April 23 that forced the executive to increase its operating expenses by 270% in May.
The conflict resumed after the presidential veto and before next year. Salaries of teaching and non-teaching staff represent almost 90% of the university’s budget, while operating expenses represent 10%. Unions report a wage delay of 63%, mainly due to high inflation in December (25%) and January (20.6%), when they received an additional 6% compared to the current agreement.
For 2025, the government has planned for public universities half of the funds that rectors have declared necessary to guarantee their operation. In this context, on October 2, a second massive march took place against the veto and to demand an increase in salaries and the restitution of the Teachers’ Encouragement Fund.
“A model system in Latin America”
Mario Sequeira, Secretary General of the Federation of University Professors (FEDUN), highlights elDiario.es the extent of the conflict: “Society has an interest in defending the university because it guarantees upward mobility. It is a model system in Latin America. We have already moved on to another example of struggle: we take the position of the trenches to recover what has been lost in wages, but this transcends wages: we defend the universities against a plan of destruction. Several teachers had to resign and turn to the private sphere. “Technological careers are being emptied of teachers, it’s very worrying.”
The exodus of university professors from public establishments to private establishments is already ringing alarm bells. In just two faculties of the University of Buenos Aires, Agronomy and Veterinary Medicine, 78 professors left this year. The salary of a full-time teacher in these faculties is around 800,000 pesos per month (750 euros).
Sequeira, the first graduate in his family, adds that “this government not only does not respect its commitments to public education, but it also attacks the rectors and calls them thieves.”
Milei focused his stance on university audits, casting a veil of suspicion over the allocation of public funds received by academic institutions. “This agitation takes a noble cause, like the university, and hides the jobs [delitos] criminals,” the ultra president said during an event at the former Kirchner Cultural Center, renamed Palacio Libertad. “Why so many problems because we want to audit them? Who doesn’t want to be audited? “The one who is dirty.”
Universities comply with regular internal audits, but the nation’s Office of the Auditor General has its review plan pending, which includes several universities. This plan must be approved by a parliamentary committee whose formation has not been completed by the government itself. The National Interuniversity Council maintained that they are being audited and it also questions why the president eliminated the resolution on transparency and does not supplement the body responsible for auditing it.
The university community promises to continue the protest. This Thursday, a national strike took place with 95% participation throughout the country. The next strikes will take place on Monday and Tuesday, as part of the plan announced by the Union Front, made up of teaching and non-teaching unions. In several provinces such as Mendoza, Corrientes, San Luis, Tucumán and La Pampa, public classes, mobilizations and activities also took place to make the conflict visible.
Next Wednesday at noon, when the Budget and Finance Committee of the Chamber of Deputies debates the 2025 budget, public courses will take place in all universities in the country. An open radio will also be installed in front of Congress, the epicenter every Wednesday of complaints from the different sectors affected by budget cuts.
To all this, the Minister of Security, Patricia Bullrich, accused university students of wanting to lead a rebellion similar to that which occurred in Chile, which in 2006 had high school protests as its epicenter and in 2009 and 2011 of university students. For the minister who is leading the repression of demonstrators, particularly against retirees, “what they are doing (students and teachers) is a provocation that they want to take to the end” and “the objective is to provoke a revolt and try to destabilize.
In Chile, current President Gabriel Boric, who was one of the student leaders during the 2011 protests demanding a “public, free and quality” university, presented a bill aimed at canceling the debts of thousands of university students. Unlike Milei.
