You heard it on No Te Duermas
On the radio program we spoke with Romina Cortaberria, general secretary of SADOP (Argentine Union of Private Teachers), who analyzed the current context of schools with the increase in fees and economic difficulties.
Tomás Modini
@ModiniTomas
At the beginning of the interview on No Te Duermas, Romina Cortaberria referred to the increase in school fees: “Every year there are increases, it is part of the management. They may be quarterly increases, but they are agreements that they have in the business chambers with education. We have been talking for a while and we said and today I continue to maintain, that there is still no enrollment movement within the private management.”
“That is why, because of the experience we had during the Macri administration, we believe that it will be an equal or worse experience in this one. We have just been able to see the consequences of the adjustment in family expenses starting from the second and a half years of Macri’s mandate, we would have to see what will happen in 2025 because for us, when we have to make a rearrangement of expenses, the last expense that the family cuts is education,” she said.
In line with this, she added that “the family that had a prepaid health insurance goes to the union social work or to public health” and that “in the case of education, they may go to a private school with a lower cost but they do not leave the private system.”
“We have dialogue and we share that information that there are no movements and in the case that there are, we will see it between December and February, which are the transfers that are requested,” she stressed.
The economic difficulties to maintain the payment of the fees
Then, the interviewee acknowledged that the situation is not yet critical: “What we would first see reflected is layoffs due to course closures, section closures and yet it does not happen. It is true that the costs faced by any company, in this case educational, in terms of services, electricity, gas, water are replicated in the value of the fee, but they also make an effort not to exceed too much and not to overpay their consumers, who are families.”
“We always talk with the businessmen and they have a scholarship system, a payment plan system. They are accompanying because there are debts,” he said.
Regarding the latter, he added that “when we go around La Matanza we see how the financial institutions have grown and that gives the indication that people are taking on debts not with a bank, but with a house that we know where it comes from” and that “the thread is going to be tightened and we will see what the scenario is next year.”
“There are families that could not pay the fee during the year and at the end of the year they make an agreement and pay it in installments. These types of issues are going to happen to readjust,” he stressed.
The fight against the adjustment
In the final part of the note, the member of SADOP stressed that the discontent is not yet general: “The awareness that we hope will happen is not generated. The discontent is not yet massive, we have seen it in the marches. The clear example are the two large events, the mobilization for the law of bases and the university budget. Not all the people came out, there was a lot but it was not enough. The issue of retirees did not touch the rest of society and it is a subject to analyze.”
“Regarding CGT, we have just lived through a historic experience that was two weeks ago in what was the first national meeting of women. It is the first time that the women leaders of more than 70 unions met to analyze the situation and discuss politics and see what our role is within the CGT. Because it is a historic institution that brings together the workers,” she continued.
To complete, she mentioned that “at the national level there are also areas of participation and consensus” and that “we have seen resignations that went to the gallery.”
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