Some conclusions of the visit of the Secretary of Education Carlos Torrendell to Congress, last week, to answer questions about the educational changes introduced by the omnibus bill.
On the positive side, sharing the space with his peers from the Ministry of Culture (Leonardo Cifelli) and the Ministry of Children and Family (Pablo de la Torre), the greatest amount of time for debate and interest on the part of the deputies was taken up by the issue of education.
Not only did lawmakers seem more motivated by the issue, but they came up with higher-level questions. Torrendell also turned out to be by far the strongest secretary when it came to answering concerns. A good one for education.
The negative: that, despite the secretary's effort to explain the country's educational problems and their possible solutions, it was once again clear that the changes contained in the omnibus law are not part of a comprehensive plan to improve Argentine education and that not even those changes were proposed by the secretariat he commands.
One of the issues raised, for example, is the dissemination of student and school grades, and the possibility of compiling rankings with this data, which is currently prohibited by law.
Torrendell explained his opposition to rankings, because they don't show the real educational value that each school adds. And because the results – in tests such as Learning – reflect, on the contrary, the socioeconomic level of the families who go to each school.
Thus, low performance does not necessarily imply poor pedagogical management, nor vice versa.
But the omnibus law does enable rankings. It says, verbatim, that it promotes "the possibility that parents can have knowledge of their children's grades, and how these and those of their school compare with those of the rest of the country". There is no doubt about it.
The question of enabling hybrid education for children from 4th grade is also not at all clear.
Torrendell explained that the aim is to introduce technology into the educational process, which is reasonable, but the law says this: "Hybrid distance learning as an alternative to face-to-face education from the second cycle of the primary level (...) may be taught in the different educational modalities."
Remote or hybrid? Alternative to face-to-face education? In 10-year-olds? It's better to rinse it well, before it gets dark.
A mixed sand: today we see a political leadership interested in educational issues and, as has not happened for a long time, ideas going around. A plan is still missing.