Private schools will limit increases with fair prices / web
The entities that include private schools agreed with the new system of staggered adjustment of fees. “What is intended is to provide predictability,” said Rodolfo de Vicenzi, president of the Confederation of Private Education Institutions (CAIEP).
De Vicenzi explained that “the agreement itself is 16.8% in March, 3.35% in April, May and June, and 4% in July.” He maintained that “this is a reference that is raised at the national level. And we are all going to work to make it happen.”
The extension of the Fair Prices Program until next June will introduce as a novelty a cap on the increases in private school fees and the incorporation of school products, thus adding to food, textiles, medicines and fuel, among other items already present in the initiative.
Within the framework of the expansion of the Fair Prices program announced by the Minister of Economy, Sergio Massa, De Vicenzi stressed that “what is intended with this agreement is to provide predictability to avoid speculation.” And he guaranteed that from the sector they are going to “work all so that it is fulfilled.”
The agreement on the increase in fees will apply to private schools with state subsidies, a percentage that is between 70% and 80% of all private schools in the country, depending on whether they are secular or confessional schools, according to a report of 2018 from the National Pedagogical University (Unipe).
The increase criteria will act as a national reference since the educational system is decentralized and it is the provinces that administer the subsidies, and end up authorizing and implementing the increases.
In any case, both the national government and the private school sector trust that the provinces adhere to it, and, for this, next Thursday the Federal Council of Education -with representatives of the ministries of Education of all the jurisdictions – will meet to finish defining the details.
SCHOOL BASKET
“The agreement includes the school basket and the price of private schools throughout Argentina. The products in the basket are important, understanding that classes start in March and for parents it is a challenge,” Massa said during the announcement made last Friday.
For his part, the leader of the private education sector, also stated that “we have worked together with the Ministry of Economy and Education, in coordination with the jurisdictions, to optimize the redistribution of higher cost transfers to fees in the semester ”.
In this sense, De Vincezi stressed that the agreement seeks to “redistribute the increase instead of impacting everything in March”, as usually happens at the beginning of each school year, in order to “find the balance between the sustainability of the family economies and the sustainability of the cost structures of the schools”.
“School and family strive to find solutions to the economic component and, in this case, the State contributes to that coordination. That is why the work that was done, ”he added, and indicated that the non-subsidized schools that will not be covered“ are a very small group that generally serves the segments of the population with a higher socioeconomic level ”.
Facing the new school year that will begin, depending on the province, between February 27 and March 2, the government program will incorporate bookstore items and supplies which will have, like the rest of the products, a maximum increase of 3.2% per month or, failing that, they will have a frozen price until June 30.
The price list for school products, like that of the rest of the expansion of the program, has not yet been released, but it is expected to be published in the coming days. In this way, the Fair Prices program extended until June 2023 will provide certainty to the consumer, they explained.
