Argentina: Milei wants to create a kind of School without a Party – 04/04/2024 – World

The dispute over what is taught in the classroom knocks on the doors of Argentine schools. The Milei government announced this Thursday (4) that it will submit to Congress a project to modify the local Education Law and punish “indoctrination carried out in schools”.

In the words of the Presidency’s spokesperson, economist Manuel Adorni, “it is sad to see content and actions in schools full of ideological militancy.” Also this Thursday, the country had another strike by school and university teachers.

Also according to Adorni, who was speaking at Casa Rosada, the Ministry of Human Capital —a super department created under Milei that unified Education and Labor, among others— will create a channel for parents and students to “report indoctrination and political activity in schools” .

“In other words, they will be able to report when they do not feel that their right to education is being respected,” he declared.

More specifically, the spokesperson said that two articles of the Education Law will be modified, but without detailing what the addenda or deletions will be. They are article 11, which dictates the purposes of education in Argentina, and 126, on students’ rights.

No comments on the changes were made, but these are chapters with commonly sensitive topics. They say that it is the responsibility of schools to provide knowledge and promote values ​​for the formation of “responsible sexuality” and for the “elimination of all forms of social discrimination”.

The issue had already been surrounding the government of self-proclaimed libertarian Javier Milei, but his spokesperson provided a recent episode as an example to motivate changes: an act to remember the Falklands War, on the 2nd, which caused discomfort in Punta Indio, in the province of Buenos Aires.

On the occasion, a high school history teacher spoke and said that it was necessary to reflect on the role of the press in supporting the 1982 conflict, one of the final acts of the last military dictatorship in Argentina. In protest, veterans present got up and left before the end of the event called by the local public administration.

Videos of the event show veterans and their families saying that this was not the right time for such questions. Spokesman Manuel Adorni said this Thursday that the act “offended family members, students and veterans of the Falklands”, an archipelago disputed with the United Kingdom and whose territorial map is reproduced ubiquitously in public places in the country.

Over the last decade, groups around the world calling for an end to what they call “indoctrination” in schools have become common. In Brazil, for example, the movement gained a platform in the form of the so-called Escola Sem Partido as an electoral platform for former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL).

There are also numerous examples in the United States, such as Florida, governed by Republican Ron DeSantis.

Sexual education and themes that flirt with the so-called critical race theory, which deals with racism as a structural practice of societies, are some of the themes most targeted by these groups.

Since Milei took office last December, there has been expectation of possible advances by his government against the so-called Integrated Sexual Education, a change in legislation promoted in 2006. The president himself and other members of his party, Liberdade Avança, have already criticized the existence of this mechanism, some of them arguing that it was a form of indoctrination and destruction of families.

This Thursday (4), a strike called by Ctera, the Confederation of Education Workers of the Republic of Argentina, made workers in the sector cross their arms. This is the second day of strike since the beginning of the 2024 school year.

In addition to better salaries, the category demands the reestablishment of the Teacher Incentive Fund, created in 1998 to transfer additional resources that allow Argentine provinces to increase teachers’ salaries by 10% to 20% of their salaries. Javier Milei’s government has already said that it will deduct the day’s salary from those who participated in the strike.