Teachers and students quit Venezuelan schools in food shortage crisis
Teachers and learning
Թ
Venezeuelan children at a school in the capital Caracas
By Alexandra Ulmer (Reuters)
Mariangel Caceres’ teachers, whose salaries do not buy enough food to live on, stopped showing up for classes early this year.
The state school in the verdant Andean state of Tachira inVenezuela also had to cut back on providing meals due tonationwide food shortages.
So when the leftist government in April decreed Fridayschool closings to save electricity, it was the last straw.
“I left school a week after Easter,” said Caceres, asports-loving 13-year-old who now spends her days travelling toneighbouring Colombia with her mother to buy flour, rice or sugarthey can no longer find or afford at home.
While Caceres hopes to enroll again in the next school year,she may find the oil-rich nation’s economic crisis makes thatdifficult.
Education is no longer a priority for many poor andmiddle-class Venezuelans who are swept up in the all-consumingquest for food amid a wave of looting and riots.
Between 30% and 40% of Venezuelan teachersfail to show up at school each day, mainly because they arestanding in lines for food or medicine, their biggest unionestimates.
Pupils’ attendance is also dropping because children havenot eaten, know there will be no food at school, or must line upand help their parents shop, according to the union.
Frequent power and water cuts are disrupting classes, andschools have been closed on Fridays for about the last twomonths.
“A year interrupted like this cannot be recovered,” saidTulio Ramirez, an education expert at Venezuela’s CentralUniversity. “These kids are growing up with an educationaldeficit.”
Native children in class at the Esperanza multi-ethnical school at Puerto Ayacucho in the state of Amazonas
Ramirez himself cannot afford new shoes on a salary worthabout $50 a month at the black market currency rate.
Supporters of the government accuse opponents ofexaggerating social problems as part of a campaign to underminesocialism in Venezuela.
They point to a 16% rise in the enrollmentrate, increased literacy and funding increases during the1999-2013 administration of former President Hugo Chavez, whodeclared education a priority for his self-styled “beautifulrevolution.”
Under successor Nicolas Maduro, however, social gains havefast evaporated during a brutal recession exacerbated by a dropin oil prices, critics say.
They cite insufficient funding for schools and a lack ofqualified teachers due to low salaries or emigration.
Venezuela has released little hard data in recent times anddoes not participate in the globally recognised Programme inInternational Student Assessment tests, so it is hard to gaugethe state of education with statistical precision.
The country’s Education and Information ministries did notrespond to requests for comment.
The decline of Venezuela, which has the world’s largest oil reserves, is reflected in the fortunes of state school Monsenor Marco Tulio Ramirez Roa in La Fria near the Colombian border.
The aging building was destroyed in 2013 to make way for anew one, but runaway inflation, bureaucratic delays andshortages of materials halted construction, according to theschool’s administration.
Authorities offered no alternative space for the nearly 300pupils, the administration said, so classes have been scatteredin nearby communal houses, a room above a now-empty state foodstore, and even an employee’s hot, narrow garage.
Students in the state of Portuguesa Picture: Venezuela Foreign Affairs Ministry
Now the classrooms struggle with frequent blackouts andwater cuts. The school can no longer provide two meals a day.
“The situation is really severe,” said mother-of-fiveJosefina Molina after her children were let out at middaybecause there was no lunch. “This is making us go crazy.”
As Molina had no food, either, her five-year-old son Yasir wasplucking fruit from a tree outside their house.
The hard times threaten to widen educational inequality.Some private schools have discreetly stayed open on Fridays andretained teachers by bumping up their salaries, but publicschools have no such options.
Fellow La Fria parent Sharon Roa, 27, said she often kepther children at home because soap shortages and water cuts makeit impossible for her to clean their uniforms.
Last year, Ever Mejias, 14, quit school, where art was hisfavourite subject, to pack ice in a factory and help out hisfamily.
Educators are also jumping ship. Mathematics teacher Douglas Mena, 32, stopped giving morning classes in March because he made twice as much money fishing in Venezuela’s vast Maracaibo Lake.
“I’m not the only one,” he said after a recent shift. “Thereare many of us who have started re-selling goods on the informalmarket, baking cakes, cleaning houses, anything.”
Many professionals across Venezuela have turned to such jobsto hedge against inflation and make it easier to line up forfood.
But supermarket lines can stretch into the thousands, andre-sale prices have skyrocketed, so many are getting by onmangoes and starch, or skipping meals altogether.
“I’ve opened my eyes,” said Edgar Barrios, 38, a former“Chavista” in La Fria who for three years has allowed a MonsenorMarco Tulio Ramirez Roa class to assemble in his garage. “I’m disappointed with the life we have now.”
The , the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, covers humanitarian news, women’s rights, corruption and climate change.
More news
