Report Nº: 109006/10/2024
In the Argentines’ beliefs, universities are seen as a factor of social mobility. However, due to the crisis in basic education, they are no longer so. The National Government’s tool to reverse this situation is to empower citizens to pressure provinces and universities to improve their management.
The unprecedented fiscal adjustment is based on public spending growing below inflation. In reaction to this policy, the opposition passed a law stipulating that in the case of national universities, spending must be recovered in real terms to the level recorded in 2023 and, in the future, updated for inflation. The President’s reaction was to veto the law under the argument that it conspires against fiscal balance, an essential objective to recover macroeconomic stability.
The opposition threatens to override the veto by re-sanctioning, with a special majority, the same law. The most frequent argument is that national universities are a factor of upward social mobility. It underlies in the belief of a large part of society that thanks to free public universities, young people from low-income families have the opportunity to move up the social ladder.
Unfortunately, no information is published on the origin of university students. However, some indications can be obtained from the rate of graduation from high school on time (without delay). These youngsters are the ones best positioned to continue with higher education. According to the Ministry of Education, it is estimated that for every 100 young people who start secondary school:
These data show that the majority of students in state schools suffer severe learning problems to the point that they do not finish high school on time or they directly drop out. This is a strong indication that few of state school students have the possibility of going to university. Thus, university enrollment is heavily skewed in favor of youngsters coming from private high schools. Therefore, universities are more an income transfer mechanism in favor of the higher socioeconomic families than a factor of social mobility.
An issue beyond universities, but with a decisive impact on their performance, is the profound deterioration of basic education. More than half of students in basic education do not graduate from high school on time and many graduates with very limited knowledge. Under these conditions, the contribution of universities to social mobility is low and an important part of their budget ends up benefiting students whose families had sufficient income to pay for a private school in basic education. For the university to be a factor of social mobility, it is necessary to substantially improve the quality of basic education, in addition to the necessary transformations in improving the quality of university education.
Neither the management of basic education schools nor that of universities depends directly on the national government. Primary and secondary schools are managed by the provinces, which are autonomous. The national universities are also autonomous thanks to the University Reform of Cordoba in 1918. The national state does not have the capacity to influence directly on educational management, but it can influence it indirectly. Strengthening the production and dissemination of educational results can generate the conditions for society to put pressure on governors and rectors to improve educational standards. It is the population, informed and concerned about the quality of education, which can demand to receive high-quality primary, secondary and university education.
The educational system demands profound transformations. While its implementation depends on the governors and university rectors, the national government has the instrument of empowering the population to put pressure on those responsible so that state education could return to being the mechanism of social mobility it once was.
