The Argentine public university has renewed the pulse it maintains with the Government of Javier Milei. Tens of thousands of people filled the square in front of Congress in Buenos Aires this Wednesday to demand more money for higher education. They chose Congress and not the Casa Rosada because that is where the future of a university financing law approved by the opposition on September 13 is at stake. The far-right president has ready to veto the law, arguing that it endangers the fiscal balance. It will be up to the deputies and senators to get two-thirds of the votes to annul it. “To our representatives in Congress, many of them graduates of public universities, we ask that if the veto is confirmed, they support the law in court,” Piera Fernández, president of the Argentine University Federation, said in her speech to the crowd ( FUA). For the Government, the protest had no value because it was “politicized” by the opposition.
This Wednesday was the second massive demonstration that Milei faced for his policy of budget cuts. Last April, half a million people marched in defense of public universities in the face of imminent closure due to financial asphyxiation. Higher education is the pride of generations of Argentines who, since it was declared free in 1949, see it as a key to the social advancement of the lower and middle classes. Milei came to power arguing that universities are a reservoir of “communists” and that professors “indoctrinate” students with leftist ideas. And he accompanied the attack with a funding cut that at the beginning of the year affected teachers’ salaries and even jeopardized the payment of things as basic as electricity. Faced with the emergency, the opposition managed, despite the Government’s claims, to approve a law in September that updates salaries and guarantees university financing. The fiscal cost of the norm is 0.4% of GDP, according to calculations by the Congressional Budget Office.
The National Interuniversity Council (CIN), the body that brings together the country’s academic authorities, warned that “between November 2023 and July 2024, the salary of university staff registered a drop of 45% in real terms, placing numerous workers below the poverty line, a situation that affects around 50% of the total staff,” warned the National Interuniversity Council (CIN)the body that brings together the country’s academic authorities.
The Government assures that it has increased the amounts it sends to the almost 70 national universities. It has done so by 150% year-on-year between January and September of this year, but when inflation is discounted, resources fall by 30%, according to a study by the Argentine Budget Association. The average salary of a “witness position”, that is, a head of practical work with semi-exclusive dedication, a load of 20 hours a week, is 360,000 pesos, about 360 dollars in the official exchange rate. The basic family basket to avoid being poor in Argentina was $900 last July. “Many teachers are below the poverty line, something that has not happened for more than 20 years. The loss of workers who leave the public university is important,” warned Carlos De Feo, Secretary General of the National Federation of University Teachers.
This Wednesday’s protest, which was replicated in provincial capitals, was carried out mainly by students and teachers. Retirees, workers, members of extreme left parties, opposition political leaders and trade unionists also joined. The presence of leaders such as Sergio Massa, former presidential candidate of Kirchnerism in the last elections, or the radical senator Martín Lousteau, fueled official complaints of “politicization” of the march. Milei used her social networks to criticize the call by reposting the messages of her most fanatical followers. “This is not a university march but a march of parasites who live off taxes, that is, from people’s hunger” or “Milei won. We show that it was a political march, that they used university resources to transport militants from the Cámpora [la agrupación del hijo de Cristina Kirchner, Máxicmo, y la Uocra [sindictado de obreros de la construcción]”, that Massa was present, the one who really adjusted the university to finance the campaign, that the corrupt CFK was present,” reads the president’s X profile.
Today Milei won.
We show that it was a political march, that they used university resources to transfer militants from the Cámpora and the UOCRA, that Massa was present, the one who really adjusted the university to finance the campaign, that the corrupt CFK who… pic.twitter.com/uDyBOahktC
— Austrian School of Economics 🇦🇷 (@DiegoMac227) October 2, 2024
The call was smaller than in April, but it was massive again. The University of Buenos Aires (UBA), the largest and most prestigious in Argentina, was the most visible face, but all the suburban universities were also present in front of the Congress, whose creation in recent decades opened the doors to thousands of students who They were first generation of university students. The social transformation they embodied is threatened by budget cuts. “We come to fight so that our children can study,” said Graciela Pérez, a 48-year-old student of Social Work at the Arturo Jauretche National University (UNAJ). “Without a free public university, it would be impossible for me to study and neither would my children be able to do so,” Pérez warned while another student held a banner next to her that read “Without public education, the future is for few.”
Nearby, students of Environmental Sciences from the University of Avellaneda asked that Milei not “ruin their present” or veto their future. One of them, Silvina, lamented that instead of fixing “everything that is wrong in Argentina,” the Government wants to deteriorate public universities, one of the few reasons for national pride that are beyond political polarization. Silvina, 27 years old, assured that it is still difficult for her to believe that Argentina has a president who cuts back on scientific research, when it is one of the keys to the future development of any country. “Many colleagues are looking for scholarships to go abroad because everything is slowed down here, it is a great loss for Argentina to be left without thousands of trained young people,” he added.
Among the most recurring criticisms were those directed at the promise made by Milei to end the political caste. “In the end the caste was the students, the workers and the retirees,” could be read in a graffiti made around the Plaza del Congreso. “A salary from Manuel Adorni [el portavoz presidencial] It is equal to 20 salaries for a teaching assistant,” denounced a retired teacher.
All eyes are now on Congress, which must gather the necessary votes to override Milei’s veto if it intends to keep the university financing law alive. Days ago, the Government managed to overcome the veto of a law that increased pensions for retirees, but now it lacks at least six votes to repeat the move. Everything will depend on the decision made by the opponents considered “dialogueists” and the effect that the march in front of Congress has had on them.
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