- The representative of the organization, Fausto Romeo, highlighted the need to count students who have not formalized their registration, since this affects school enrollment rates in the country.
Fausto Romeo, general director of Consenso Educativo and vice president of the National Association of Private Educational Institutes (Andiep), reported that the return to classes has been slow, since it is estimated that 20% of students have not registered or formalized their withdrawal.
Romeo stressed that, of the 3,800 schools, it is estimated that 40% have already started classes, while an additional 20% will return during the current week. The union representative stated that the rest of the schools will resume activities on September 30.
The Andiep representative explained that the lack of enrolled students is due, in part, to the uncertainty generated before and after the presidential elections on July 28.
“They are parents who have reserved a place, but they say ‘I’ll stay, but let me see’. I think it is up to the school authorities to find out what happened to those students and see if they are in the public or private sector. We have to gather that data,” Romeo said in an interview with Unión Radio.
The lack of student enrollment is also linked to the economic capacity of the representatives. In July 2024, Fausto Romeo warned that the monthly fees of private schools in Venezuela could increase by up to 6% due to the Pension Protection Actwhich came into force on May 16, 2024.
“The decree of the Pension Protection Law could increase the monthly payment of each student by between 4.5 and 6%, this is because the academic institution must multiply the number of workers it has by the dollars it receives, at the rate of the Central Bank of Venezuela, and this must be divided by the number of students. The variation depends on the number of students,” Romeo explained.
He pointed out that the increase was established based on the percentage of special contribution that all private companies in the country must make, which is 9%.
At that time, Romeo indicated that the increase would apply for the September 2024-2025 school year, and that parents or representatives had to pay a retroactive payment for May, June, July and August.
Back to school in Venezuela
The Venezuelan government reported that the period 2024-2025 will formally begin on Monday, September 30 progressively until October 4 in the different educational subsystems.
According to the Ministry of Education, the return to school schedule is as follows:
-A school maintenance plan will be implemented from September 9 to 15.
-A training plan for teachers would begin from September 16 to 22.
-From September 23 to 29, a teacher care plan will be launched.
Education Minister Hector Rodriguez denied on September 22 that private schools had been ordered to suspend or delay the start of classes before the scheduled date, which is September 30.
Teachers have left the public sector
The economic crisis that the country is going through has also caused a progressive shortage of teachers. According to Fausto Romeo In a previous interview for The DiaryBy 2016, there was a shortage of at least 130,000 teachers, a figure that has increased to between 200 and 300,000 today.
In his opinion, this is not only due to the desertion of teachers, but also to the lack of people with a vocation for the educational field. In this sense, he indicated that currently there are few people who enroll in universities to study Education.
“It takes at least 10 years to revive education in a country, because it is not just a matter of a person graduating in five years and starting to teach, but rather you have to work on your vocation so that a person can prepare themselves satisfactorily and generate real development in the classroom,” Romeo explained.
In July 2024, the president of the Venezuelan Federation of Teachers (FVM) of the Capital District, Edgar Machado, highlighted that a considerable number of educators had dropped out due to low salaries.
“There are a large number of teachers who have left the education system due to the low salaries offered by the Ministry of Education. Every year, more teachers are leaving the classroom to go to other areas,” said Machado.
In a review of the 2023-2024 school year, Machado referred to the importance of the Ministry of Education implementing policies that allow teachers to return to their jobs, since even universities are running out of teachers.
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2024-09-24 02:28:21
