UNIVERSITY MARCH: THE GOVERNMENT AND THE MISTAKE OF PICKING ON THE WRONG ENEMY​

To qualify the march by looking only at those who wanted to use it politically is a biased analysis and, therefore, misguided. Public education continues to be seen as a good for all.

In the conviction that it is always a good thing to have an enemy -a belief originating from populism- the Government did what it was going to do at some point: it got into a fight with the wrong opponent. It so happens that in Argentina education is never an issue in electoral campaigns, it is never debated in depth. But, to paraphrase Maradona, it does not stain.

Ricardo López Murphy learned it the hard way almost a quarter of a century ago, when he announced as Fernando de la Rúa’s new Minister of Economy an adjustment of 1,962 million pesos/dollars. In addition to declaring a pension emergency, cutting back on transfers to the provinces, reducing health programs, increasing VAT on entertainment and laying off 40,000 public employees, he proposed to reduce the Education budget and eliminate transfers to the University of Buenos Aires (UBA). It was a 5% cut in the educational area.

The student protests took the Bulldog away. He lasted 17 days in office.

A bad education policy was also decisive for the terrible public image with which Alberto Fernández left his presidency: the stubbornness in keeping schools closed due to the pandemic was the starting point of a popular discredit that later, together with other stumbles and falls, reached levels never seen before for a president.

Javier Milei could make a similar mistake. When the Government, through its spokesman Manuel Adorni, describes this Tuesday’s university march as a “ghost train” due to the participation of “Massa, Lousteau, Máximo Kirchner, Yacobitti, piqueteros, organizations”, he makes a biased and therefore wrong analysis.

Because it is true that the CGT, the CTA, the UCR, La Cámpora, the Trotskyist left, the social organizations and others joined the protest because it always looks good to defend education and they would be incapable of making a massive mobilization for their own.

But it is also true that a good part of the people who marched to Plaza de Mayo did it independently. To defend the idea of public education, not the political use of it.

Because most Argentines still genuinely believe in the importance of the public university for the development of the country: 87.4% agree with the phrase “public education is a right of all and we must defend it”. Tertiary education, even with all its flaws, continues to be a symbol of excellence and social advancement. Even for many libertarian voters.

By the way, many took advantage of the invitation to march to make catharsis for the acute pain in their pockets caused by the inflation of these months and to warn, somehow, that there is no eternal honeymoon. And that it is not always necessary to adjust with a chainsaw: sometimes a scalpel must be used. From the IMF to several unsuspected heterodox economists have already talked about the importance of the “quality” of the adjustment.

The Government’s “go for everything” -K style- and cut the budget by 70% in real terms, made the Tyrians and Trojans unite in the defense of the university. And any discussion on the subject, even the very necessary ones, was postponed for another occasion.

Because there are undoubtedly issues to be debated.

For example, whether graduates should make a “patriotic contribution”. Or if foreigners (4% of the enrollment) should pay. Or if the balance of careers offered by the UBA and the institutions invented by Kirchnerism in the GBA is correct. Or if, also in the case of the UBA, the Basic Cycle should not be revised and another type of admission should be established.

Above all, how to make spending more efficient and transparent.

Exactly the objective that the Government says it wants, but which it is failing to achieve when, by attacking the public university indiscriminately, it only manages to open a new rift, which adds problems and avoids solutions.

Unless, of course, the hidden solution is to end public education.

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PABLO VACA is the editor-in-chief of the Argentine newspaper Clarín. He is a member of EditoRed.

This article was originally published in Clarín, with whose authorization we reproduce it here. If you use it, please cite the newspaper and the author.