The draft National Education Law (LEN) reform project promoted by the government of Javier Milei has caused a wave of criticism and concern in the educational community. The “leaked” document is described by experts as a threat to the general social right to education guaranteed by the state.
The proposal is based on the premise of prioritizing individual and family freedom in educational choicewhich gives the state a subordinate role. Analysts warn against this vision will exacerbate social inequalities.
Profile Córdoba spoke to about this topic Vanessa LopezProfessor and Researcher in the Department of Education, Faculty of Philosophy and Humanities, UNC. López is a specialist in issues related to public and educational policy, secondary education and higher education.
—What is the main paradigm shift introduced by the draft Freedom of Education Law Project and how does it impact the historical conception of education in Argentina?
“The draft was distributed without attribution and without any official explanation. It proposes a series of innovations that express a paradigm shift in thinking, planning and designing public education policies based on the principles of subsidiarity, deregulation and privatization of education. One of the most important changes concerns the role assigned to the state: the bill proposes its displacement and assigns it a subordinate role; expresses that the state can intervene in a complementary manner to institutions and/or to support “social initiatives”. This positioning is a regressive approach to the social right to education enshrined in current regulations, by downgrading the state’s historical role as a teaching state. It endangers the guarantee of the right to education and apparently delegates responsibility to individual actors. The regulation of the education system as a whole from a federal perspective would also be affected, as deregulation and equalization of state initiatives with private initiatives are proposed under the premise of “educational freedom” and preference for the family.
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— Do you think it is necessary to reform the national education law?
—I don’t think it’s necessary to reform it. It is a law that, in all its provisions, advances and expands the recognition of education by all, sanctifies it as a social right and, above all, recognizes the right of historically backward minorities, proposing educational modalities that take into account their specificities.
—Which aspects of the reform project concern you most?
– First, the emphasis on the autonomy of families, institutions and social initiatives in deciding and defining the times of the school calendar, the content to be taught, the methods of hiring teachers, the modalities and alternative forms of education such as home schooling, hybrid learning and distance learning, which somehow forego the school as an institution of cultural transmission, the formation of the common and the building of social bonds.
—The project proposes autonomy in terms of educational freedom, what do you think?
– The autonomy so proposed without the protection of the State in highly unequal societies like ours contributes to deepening social and educational fragmentation. Which families have the prerequisites to be able to offer and support education at home? Which families have access to electronic devices, connectivity and digital literacy to access technology-enabled education?
– The draft also promotes the idea of the “education vouchers” program, similar to the Chilean model. How do you see it?
“This is another point of concern. At the same time, support programs for the completion of compulsory educational qualifications, the recipients of which are in socially disadvantaged sectors, are being canceled. The question concerns the conditions of opportunity and justice in the exercise of the right to education.
“That is, the collapse of the state in a context of profound inequalities would affect the most vulnerable…”
—Yes, it mainly affects vulnerable sectors. For them, the exercise of educational freedom becomes a fiction without public policy, which challenges them as legal subjects because it presupposes conditions (material, social, cultural, etc.) that in many cases they do not have. The right to education becomes the privilege of those who have the conditions to exercise it without having to deal with the countless variables that come into play and make schooling possible.
—Going back to the question of funding through competition for enrollment, what would happen to schools that are poor, rural, or have few students?
—The project enables competitive mechanisms for enrollment through standardized assessments, complemented by the transfer of public resources to private offerings; Therefore – and without wishing to venture – the impact on public schools in general would be less than encouraging given the definition and systematic budget cuts in public education that the national government has implemented.
—The project proposes the freedom of schools to hire and fire staff. What impact would that have?
—This is a rather sensitive aspect of the project in terms of protecting the rights of teachers. It gives institutions the power to set the terms and conditions of hiring and firing, ignoring existing regulations and established collective bargaining frameworks. In addition, the parent council is given the power to “remove the director of the facility”. Therefore, one of the effects at first glance is the precarity of teaching and their recognition as educational professionals. Therefore, I believe that the provisions of the document fail teachers as a group of workers.
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What the draft of the Freedom of Education Act says
Repeal of the National Education Act (LEN): The aim of the project is to replace the current education legislation (Law 26.206) with a new legal framework that entails a profound change in education policy.
Freedom of education: Freedom of teaching and learning is anchored in accordance with the beliefs, methods and pedagogical projects of each institution.
Preferred role of the family: The family is established as the natural and primary provider of education.
State subsidiarity: The state acts as a guarantor of the right to education (ensuring access and validity), but without replacing family responsibility.
Mandatory: School attendance is compulsory from the age of 4 until completion of secondary school.
Alternative forms of teaching: The right to basic education is recognized through modalities outside educational institutions, such as homeschooling, hybrid and distance learning. Validity is guaranteed through the accreditation of common minimum content.
Content and autonomy: At the national level, common minimum content is established, but a space of mandatory curricular autonomy is created that each institution can use to develop its own spaces, themes or projects.
Autonomy for schools: Basic education institutions (public and private) have institutional and pedagogical autonomy, including the power to determine their governance system, their own curricula, teaching strategies, and admission, tenure, and discipline policies.
Legal equality between administrations: State and private institutions enjoy legal equality with regard to the national validity of titles and access to public funds.
Private financing: The aim is to introduce a system of economic contributions to private institutions. Instruments such as scholarships, education vouchers or tax credits are mentioned, which are intended to give families a free choice of institution.
Education as an essential service: This ensures a minimum continuity of educational offerings during teaching strikes.
Teaching activity: It is organized according to the principles of merit, quality, regular evaluation and continuous training.
Fees: Teaching and management positions in state institutions are filled through open selection procedures per institution. For managers, the competition includes the evaluation of a management project and the participation of families through parent councils.
Evaluation: The national authority carries out an annual census evaluation at the end of primary and secondary school and publishes the results broken down by institution on an open digital portal.
Loss of discretionary transfers: If a jurisdiction ends the calendar year without meeting the minimum number of annual classes, it is prohibited from receiving voluntary transfers (including public works) from the national government.