The presidential candidate of Together for Change patricia bullrich I am sure that this Friday, June 30, the Argentine universities “are empty” and that “almost half” of the students are foreigners. From the ruling party they questioned the figures provided by the leader and criticized him in various ways: on the one hand, they reproached him for his “ignorance” in matters of public education, but he was also the focus of criticism for his alleged initiative to “defund” the educational area.
According to the former Minister of Security, only 12% of the population has access to higher education and that “almost half of the enrollment is foreign students”.
This is how he exposed it in the framework of the XVI Atlantic Forum “Ibero-America: Democracy and Freedom” of the International Freedom Foundation.
“Argentina has a population of 46 million Argentines. Until 30 years ago Argentina was the country with the largest university population in Latin America, today we have 12% of our population that goes to university because they stay in high school,” Bullrich said. .
And he affirmed: “Argentina is the country with the most public universities in Latin America, it has 56 public universities and as many or more private ones, however those universities today are empty of students, we have almost half of the enrollment of foreign students who come and take the chances that Argentina gives and the Argentines are left in a cemetery in the secondary school because education has been destroyed”.
Repudiation of government officials to the statements of Patricia Bullrich
From the ruling party, the statements did not go unnoticed and the Minister of Education, Jaime Perczyktook the opportunity to dedicate a severe disclaimer through a Twitter thread.
“Patricia Bullrich’s statements about Argentine public universities demonstrate their ignorance, ignorance and negative prejudice about one of the pillars of knowledge, science and research that our country has,” the minister said on his networks.
“81% of university students do so in public universities that are recognized for their academic performance not only in our country but also throughout the world,” he clarified.
“Foreigners who come to the country are welcome and improve our education because they allow exchange with our university students and it also allows Argentines to study undergraduate and graduate degrees abroad,” Perczyk added.
In turn, he emphasized that “The total number of foreign undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate students is 4% in public universities and 5.5% in private ones”.
“We will continue financing and supporting the public university because it is one of the pillars for full democracy, equality, social justice, federalism and the economic, social and productive development of Argentina”, concluded the head of Education.
daniel filmusMinister of Science, Technology and Innovation of the Nation, joined the debate and pointed against Bullrich for his “eagerness to close and re-adjust the Public University”.
“In his quest for close and reset the Public University, Bullrich displays tremendous ignorance. He claims that she is empty and that half of the students are foreigners. The truth is that there are 2,476,915 university students. More than 80% go to the public and only 4.2 are foreigners!” Filmus said on Twitter.
Patricia Bullrich “clarified” her controversial statements
After his statements generated a large volume of bounce on social networks, Bullrich came out to clarify his sayings.
“Nobility obliges: in my presentation this morning at the XVI Atlantic Forum, there was a confusion that I want to clarify. In Argentina, 50% of the boys do not finish high school and only 12% enter the university. Our universities They also have a very low rate of university graduations. We have to work to improve the level of graduations,” he stressed.
According to official information, entrants to national universities grew by more than 67% in the last ten years.
The University Information Synthesis prepared annually by the National Ministry of Education showed that the number of new entrants grew from 423,920 in 2012 to 710,699 in 2021, that the university system went from 1,824,904 undergraduate and graduate students to a total of 2,549,789 and that in that period the number of students who graduated increased by 29.4%.
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Among the data collected, it can be seen that the Argentine university system has 2,730,754 students, who study in the 11,769 undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate courses that are taught in the 132 universities throughout the country.
The report revealed that in 2021 a total of 117,820 foreign students were obtained in Argentine universities, of which 99,693 studied undergraduate or graduate studies and 18,127 postgraduate offers.
This population represents 3.9% of all undergraduate and graduate students, and 10% of postgraduate students.
According to the type of management, this population represents 4.1% of the total for the state sector and 5.5% in the private sector.
Regarding its origin, it is worth highlighting the fact that 95.93% comes from American countries, 2.90% from European countries, and the remaining 1.17% from Asia, Africa and Oceania.
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