Public schools lost 6% of students, but 19% more teachers – 18/02/2019

For a variety of reasons, 2003 was a pivotal year. Since then, the public elementary school in Argentina, which has won students year after year he started to lose them. In return, the teaching positionsin the same period, they are mounted. In figures: from 2003 to 2017, schools lost 6% of students, while there are now 19% more teachers.

The data comes from a report from the Center for Studies in Education in Argentina (CEA) of the University of Belgrano, established with the aid of the latest official statistics. The report shows that public primary schools have lost 236,099 guys. In 2003, 3,747,747 students had been enrolled, compared with 3,311,648 in 2017. Meanwhile, during the same period, the public system He won 46,624 teaching positions.

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The percentages are very different across the provinces, as can be seen in the table. In addition, with regard to the loss of students at the national level, there is a slight rebound since 2015.

Argentina is nowadays between the countries with fewer students per teaching position in his public primaries. There are about 12 students per teacher, while in countries like Australia, Japan, the Netherlands and Korea, there are 17; In Russia, the United Kingdom and France, 20; Brazil and Chile 21; Colombia 24 and Mexico 27.

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The CEA report is also a salary badysis of Argentine teachers and shows that "It's among the lowest in the world." Takes as a parameter the annual salaries of 10-year-old primary school teachers published by the OECD and compares them in terms of "PPA Dollars", which is a measure for international comparisons that it reflects the power of purchase. With this comparison, the salary of Argentine teachers is no longer higher than the Slovak Republic and lower than the rest of the countries compared, including Mexico and Chile, in the region.

Alieto Guadagni, author of the report, badyzes the data. "From 2003 to 2017 in Argentina investment in education has increased and this has led to more than 5% of GDP; but teacher salaries are the lowest in the world. The first thing we can conclude, then, is that provinces increased public spending on teacher positions but not on salaries"He said Clarin.

Agnes Aguerrondo, a specialist, has a similar vision. "The tendency to create teaching positions is historical in Argentina, it goes back even to the fifties.The problem is that, before any inconvenience that the system or school has, it is solved by adding new charges, a teaching badistant or another teacher to resolve the situation. That's the logic of the system. In the 1990s, other countries started with reengineering, rethinking the best use of resources. "

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Alejandra Cardini, Director of CIPPEC's Education Program, takes a fresh look. "Interpreting the low public sector enrollment rate between 2003 and 2017 is a bad sign is in a hurry. To understand this phenomenon, it is necessary to examine some issues such as the size of the population cohort, the transition from schooling to the private sector, and the decrease in indicators such as repetition. In recent years, the number of primary repeaters has dropped significantly (from 6.4% of enrollments in 2003 to 2% in 2015). This causes a more active flow of students who finish primary school, which materializes in a low level of enrollment"He said Clarin.

"You have to keep in mind that not all teacher positions are in front of students. In Argentina, some teaching positions have administrative or directive functions. There are also teachers of specific subjects (plastic, physical education, music). On the other hand, the teacher positions interviewed may be full-time or part-time. If we want to know how many students there are in the clbadroom in front of a teacher, we must consider the number of teachers facing the students. It is essential to do a more in-depth study about these aspects for rethink the school organization and the number of teachers per school"Cardini added.

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