Education minister Alberto Sileoni has announced the creation of a new School Infrastructure Fund, which will invest 750 million pesos in building classrooms for four-year-olds across the country.
The announcement follows President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s decision last week to lower the obligatory schooling age to four.
«The objective of this special infrastructure fund is to support the provinces with investment from the national government, in order to guarantee compliance with obligatory schooling from the age of four,» Sileoni remarked as he opened the 59th assembly of the Federal Education Council.
«Argentina has had 108 years where the school age was seven, established by Law 1,420 in 1884. As a society, we needed 80 years to meet this order; through laws in democracy we have doubled the number of years and we have set ourselves 14 years of obligatory education,» the minister added.
«In Argentina right now, 81.5 percent of children aged four are in the education system. This increase in enrolments is the result of several public policies which the government has carried out with sustained financing for the construction of classrooms and kindergartens for infants.»
During his address to the Council assembly, which took place in Mendoza, Sileoni highlighted the number of classrooms that had been built under the administrations of Néstor Kirchner and Cristina.
«In 2001 there were 11,701 classrooms for four-year-olds in the country, while in 2013 this number jumped to 20,933 for that age. We need a last effort as a society to add the last 20 percent of girls and boys, and reach full coverage, as registered now for five-year-olds,» he affirmed.
Source: Buenos Aires Herald