They detect an “alarming” increase in children who left school in a suburban municipality - Infobae
Source:
www.infobae.com
February 21, 2024
By Juan Piscetta
In the first "Back to School" operation, it was detected that the cases of students with school discontinuation increased threefold
Ezequiel Curaba , the 21-year-old who died after his body burned 90% while trying to steal high-tension cables in Rosario , had dropped out of school with the pandemic. He was homeless and made a living from surgery. The fate of those who drop out of compulsory studies is uncertain, but never promising.
Pushed by the economic crisis and the home disorganization that it implies, families like those of Ezequiel Curaba decide to stop sending their children to classes. In Barrio Esperanza , a neighborhood in the Buenos Aires town of Remedios de Escalada in the Tres de Febrero district , there alone they detected about 35 cases of school dropouts or some type of discontinuity in education. A “figure that is alarming when compared with the results of previous operations in 2023, where 11 cases were detected,” municipal sources told Infobae .
The warning signal was known on February 19, during the first day of the “We're Back to School” operation led by Mayor Diego Valenzuela . The program, which will run until February 28, has the objective of ensuring the presence of children and adolescents in classrooms.
“We do this program every year 15 days before the start of classes. It is very effective and critical to be able to do so. Many vulnerable families, especially in popular neighborhoods, have so many needs that sometimes they do not have the information for the children's schooling, for example, when a family moves and does not know which school is in the area, or if there is one or not. vacancies,” Valenzuela told Infobae .
The program started in 2022 after the negative impact of the COVID-19 emergency. According to data from the National Ministry of Education, the year-on-year dropout rate at the secondary level during the 2020-2021 period was 4.48%. However, for the last year of that level, the figure rises to 15.94 percent.
The program started in 2022 after the negative impact of the COVID-19 emergency
There were records of a strong recovery with the post-pandemic. According to the survey released last year by the Argentinos por la Educación Observatory , school dropouts were reduced by 9.3% at the secondary level compared to 2018. Even so, that same record already indicated that 3 out of every 10 young people in all the country did not finish their compulsory studies.
Despite this improvement, the first signs of an increase in school dropouts in the most vulnerable population began to be registered. According to a survey carried out by the municipal Human Development Secretariat, of the 648 inhabitants of Esperanza, almost half (46%) are children or adolescents, but only 69% of them are currently in school . The risk of the current context is that the problem deepens.
“ During this operation we managed to get 70% of the homes to open their doors to us ,” mentions a report prepared by the Tres de Febrero Education Secretariat. According to the municipal body, the main cause identified from dialogue with neighbors is moving . That is, people who decide to migrate to the neighborhood and came from other areas of the metropolitan area or from the interior of the country.
Another difficulty that was identified is that many families face problems enrolling their children in schools due to the loss of essential documents such as ID, birth certificates or certificates related to health. In other cases, it is noted that there are different family organization problems that resulted in the impossibility of registering for the new school year. “This data reveals the complexity and diversity of socioeconomic situations,” the report states.
“Yesterday we spoke with a mother who had moved and the previous school was not comfortable for her, and she still didn't have an answer. We have already articulated it with the nearest school. The State has to be the facilitator for these people who, due to work problems or emotional vulnerability, do not deal with all of these issues. We are still moving forward, in Esperanza we found cases that were in limbo,” Valenzuela noted.
The mayor of Tres de Febrero, Diego Valenzuela, led the first day of the operation to reduce school dropouts
In the district there was municipal investment to strengthen the educational offer. Various areas of the Municipality participate in the program to offer trade courses and workshops with job opportunities. According to reports, the 27 municipal gardens were renovated , the academic courses of the Capacyt teacher training institute, the Municipal School of Art and Culture (EMAC) and the Municipal School of Music (EMMU) remain in force. There was delivery of physical education and robotics tools and materials, and building improvements to provincial primary and secondary schools, and the delivery of 18 thousand school kits is being planned for the first week of March. For its part, the Ministry of Health offers ophthalmological assistance, vaccinations and the physical fitness necessary to go to school.
But the problem is not only infrastructure and supply, but mainly social and economic. A study by the Argentine Catholic University (UCA) estimated that poverty exceeded 57% of the population in January as an effect of the devaluation and adjustment measures carried out by the Government.
Valenzuela observed that the economic crisis is influencing school discontinuity. “Obviously the entire socioeconomic situation always causes desertion to be concentrated in these social sectors. It is a bit of our role: not to sit back and have a proactive attitude. What we do is a comprehensive action that has the objective of getting them to go to school, but we also detect other health situations, domestic violence or food,” said the mayor of Tres de Febrero.
Education is one of the most virtuous integration strategies, but income inequality limits it. According to another report from the Argentine Social Debt Observatory (ODSA) of that study house, carried out by researchers Ianina Tuñón and Santiago Poy, the social origin , the family educational climate and the domestic requirements (such as taking care of relatives or going out to work) are structural factors recognized to explain the difficulties that young people face in completing secondary level. In 2023, the UCA estimated that an adolescent from the lowest income stratum is almost 5 times more likely to be out of school or over-aged compared to her peers in the upper-middle stratum.
The operations in Tres de Febrero will continue until the start of classes in the 11 popular neighborhoods and emergency villages of the district, such as Barrio Derqui, Ejercito de los Andes, Capitán Bermúdez, Mercado, Los Rusos, San Eduardo, Favelita, Escalada and Puerta 8 .
Source:
Detectan un aumento “alarmante” de chicos que dejaron la escuela en un municipio del conurbano
En Tres de Febrero, el intendente Diego Valenzuela relanzó un operativo para que los alumnos que desertaron vuelvan a clases. Se triplicaron los casos de discontinuidad educativa en comparación con años anteriores
www.infobae.com
February 21, 2024
By Juan Piscetta
In the first "Back to School" operation, it was detected that the cases of students with school discontinuation increased threefold
Ezequiel Curaba , the 21-year-old who died after his body burned 90% while trying to steal high-tension cables in Rosario , had dropped out of school with the pandemic. He was homeless and made a living from surgery. The fate of those who drop out of compulsory studies is uncertain, but never promising.
Pushed by the economic crisis and the home disorganization that it implies, families like those of Ezequiel Curaba decide to stop sending their children to classes. In Barrio Esperanza , a neighborhood in the Buenos Aires town of Remedios de Escalada in the Tres de Febrero district , there alone they detected about 35 cases of school dropouts or some type of discontinuity in education. A “figure that is alarming when compared with the results of previous operations in 2023, where 11 cases were detected,” municipal sources told Infobae .
The warning signal was known on February 19, during the first day of the “We're Back to School” operation led by Mayor Diego Valenzuela . The program, which will run until February 28, has the objective of ensuring the presence of children and adolescents in classrooms.
“We do this program every year 15 days before the start of classes. It is very effective and critical to be able to do so. Many vulnerable families, especially in popular neighborhoods, have so many needs that sometimes they do not have the information for the children's schooling, for example, when a family moves and does not know which school is in the area, or if there is one or not. vacancies,” Valenzuela told Infobae .
The program started in 2022 after the negative impact of the COVID-19 emergency. According to data from the National Ministry of Education, the year-on-year dropout rate at the secondary level during the 2020-2021 period was 4.48%. However, for the last year of that level, the figure rises to 15.94 percent.
The program started in 2022 after the negative impact of the COVID-19 emergency
There were records of a strong recovery with the post-pandemic. According to the survey released last year by the Argentinos por la Educación Observatory , school dropouts were reduced by 9.3% at the secondary level compared to 2018. Even so, that same record already indicated that 3 out of every 10 young people in all the country did not finish their compulsory studies.
Despite this improvement, the first signs of an increase in school dropouts in the most vulnerable population began to be registered. According to a survey carried out by the municipal Human Development Secretariat, of the 648 inhabitants of Esperanza, almost half (46%) are children or adolescents, but only 69% of them are currently in school . The risk of the current context is that the problem deepens.
“ During this operation we managed to get 70% of the homes to open their doors to us ,” mentions a report prepared by the Tres de Febrero Education Secretariat. According to the municipal body, the main cause identified from dialogue with neighbors is moving . That is, people who decide to migrate to the neighborhood and came from other areas of the metropolitan area or from the interior of the country.
Another difficulty that was identified is that many families face problems enrolling their children in schools due to the loss of essential documents such as ID, birth certificates or certificates related to health. In other cases, it is noted that there are different family organization problems that resulted in the impossibility of registering for the new school year. “This data reveals the complexity and diversity of socioeconomic situations,” the report states.
“Yesterday we spoke with a mother who had moved and the previous school was not comfortable for her, and she still didn't have an answer. We have already articulated it with the nearest school. The State has to be the facilitator for these people who, due to work problems or emotional vulnerability, do not deal with all of these issues. We are still moving forward, in Esperanza we found cases that were in limbo,” Valenzuela noted.
The mayor of Tres de Febrero, Diego Valenzuela, led the first day of the operation to reduce school dropouts
In the district there was municipal investment to strengthen the educational offer. Various areas of the Municipality participate in the program to offer trade courses and workshops with job opportunities. According to reports, the 27 municipal gardens were renovated , the academic courses of the Capacyt teacher training institute, the Municipal School of Art and Culture (EMAC) and the Municipal School of Music (EMMU) remain in force. There was delivery of physical education and robotics tools and materials, and building improvements to provincial primary and secondary schools, and the delivery of 18 thousand school kits is being planned for the first week of March. For its part, the Ministry of Health offers ophthalmological assistance, vaccinations and the physical fitness necessary to go to school.
But the problem is not only infrastructure and supply, but mainly social and economic. A study by the Argentine Catholic University (UCA) estimated that poverty exceeded 57% of the population in January as an effect of the devaluation and adjustment measures carried out by the Government.
Valenzuela observed that the economic crisis is influencing school discontinuity. “Obviously the entire socioeconomic situation always causes desertion to be concentrated in these social sectors. It is a bit of our role: not to sit back and have a proactive attitude. What we do is a comprehensive action that has the objective of getting them to go to school, but we also detect other health situations, domestic violence or food,” said the mayor of Tres de Febrero.
Education is one of the most virtuous integration strategies, but income inequality limits it. According to another report from the Argentine Social Debt Observatory (ODSA) of that study house, carried out by researchers Ianina Tuñón and Santiago Poy, the social origin , the family educational climate and the domestic requirements (such as taking care of relatives or going out to work) are structural factors recognized to explain the difficulties that young people face in completing secondary level. In 2023, the UCA estimated that an adolescent from the lowest income stratum is almost 5 times more likely to be out of school or over-aged compared to her peers in the upper-middle stratum.
The operations in Tres de Febrero will continue until the start of classes in the 11 popular neighborhoods and emergency villages of the district, such as Barrio Derqui, Ejercito de los Andes, Capitán Bermúdez, Mercado, Los Rusos, San Eduardo, Favelita, Escalada and Puerta 8 .
