Private schools in the province of Buenos Aires register close to 25 percent delinquency, 10 points more than last year. At the same time, there is an increasing migration towards state schools, according to the admission of different associations that group private education establishments, both subsidized and free.
For Martín Zurita, executive secretary of the Association of Private Education Institutes of the province of Buenos Aires (Aiepba), the percentage rises to 25 percent, because it is “10 percent more than in 2022, which reached 15 percent.” hundred”.
Meanwhile, Perpetuo Lentijo, director of the Association of Argentine Private Educational Entities (Adeepra), raised the situation with another nuance: delinquency is double what it was in April 2022. “At that time it was 5 percent, now it is above 10 percent,” he said.
The private education system brings together 1.4 million students in some 6,400 services.
In this context, there is a certain migration of enrollment, from private schools with medium and medium high tuition to lower fees or directly to state establishments. The greatest impact of this trend is recorded at the Initial level, they clarify.
Lentijo remarks that “from 2007 to 2015 there was uninterrupted growth in enrollment in the Province. After 2015, it started to slow down and reverse. In recent years the enrollment has started to drop.
The manager of Adeepra added that “there is no obvious and visible transfer from a higher socioeconomic level to a lower one. At least, it’s not significant. Yes, it happens in the lower levels of the social pyramid, which directly go to a state establishment, mainly at the Initial level, where the difference in enrollment is noticeable. Neither is the situation alarming or serious for the sector”.
For his part, Zurita said that the drop in enrollment at the Initial level has been going on for four years, “as we have been warning from Aiepba and since the pandemic worsened. We are not aware that they are in the State. The authorities should follow up, since some go to clandestine gardens or blue gardens. There is also the situation that those who are at home do not send them to Kindergarten and take them directly to Primary”.
According to the manager, “the decrease in Initial is an average of 10 to 15 percent, depending on the area. A little less is registered in the first cycle of primary education (from first to third grade). Meanwhile, at the Secondary level enrollment is fairly sustained, where families make a significant effort for the student to finish their school stage in the establishment where they began high school.”
BLUE GARDENS
They arose in the midst of a pandemic, with face-to-face classes suspended and in some districts the modality of meeting children in squares or parks with a teacher they hire to teach them remains. This scheme was warned by Aiepba and at the time from the Initial Level Chamber of the federal capital it was remarked on the “clandestine character”. At the same time, it was indicated that those framed in the law “have the spaces prepared, we have presented the protocols and what we are waiting for are answers. The ‘blue garden’ or ‘clandestine mobile’ is a proposal where a teacher gets together and they watch”.
Since last year, in that entity, the problem of the Level has been insisted on. Specifically, it was pointed out that after two years of pandemic and restriction of face-to-face classes, more than 500 gardens in Argentina have closed and some 60 are from the Province.
Zurita stated that “blue gardens began to proliferate and affected enrollment. Much was said about these gardens, which are made in houses and so on. They were made in the midst of a pandemic, when the Buenos Aires government and the different jurisdictions did not allow the establishments to open. Families were looking for a place to leave their children, that’s where the blue gardens arose. There always were and we denounced them. Now, there are many more,” he indicated.
“Since the State does not have any type of control, there you do not know who is in charge. There are caregivers, but they don’t have the professional training to be a teacher,” he added.
Meanwhile, Leandro Goroyesky, teacher and former executive director of the National Institute of Technological Education (INET) indicated that “the Provincial Government incorporates by law day care centers into the national education system as non-compulsory official education, but those whose management is private They do not receive state subsidies. The nurseries closed a very complicated year 2022, especially those who went through the pandemic, but now they suffer the effects of inflation with serious difficulties ”.
GARDENS IN DIFFICULTIES
In this sense, he added that “despite the fact that since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic they urgently ask to be heard by the provincial government, now the official teaching kindergartens are once again experiencing serious difficulties due to the economic crisis. Those that are authorized by the Directorate of Private Management Education (Diegep) continue to close while clandestine spaces continue to emerge, without authorization and without supervision, to address the assistance of minors, unaware that private official maternity hospitals must not only provide assistance, but also who also have to be registered and form part of official public education, for the moment not compulsory”.
The teacher indicated that “although the private kindergartens dedicated to the care of boys and girls from 45 days to 2 years of age offered activities to families during the coronavirus pandemic, a high percentage stopped paying fees; and with virtually no state aid, they had to go into debt and face serious financial difficulties.”
Thus, he assessed that today “the panorama is very complex. The majority are small institutions that must face many demands. In a regular kindergarten, everything has a cost: paying teachers’ and teachers’ salaries with retirement contributions, complying with habitability and safety standards, maintaining the infrastructure and, in many cases, paying rent, for which the general increase in prices puts them in trouble.”
