Mario Aguilar questions the 2027 Budget cuts: "The promise to reduce State spending without affecting social rights is not being fulfilled"

The president of the Teachers' Association, Mario Aguilar, spoke today on the program Desde La Redacción on La Tercera about how difficult teaching is in Chile, specifically regarding the Executive's proposed cuts to Education in the 2027 Budget. While he positively highlighted that inclusion has been incorporated as a country-wide policy, thus including students with special educational needs, he criticized that this was done without providing teachers with the adequate tools to create that openness to inclusion. "Inclusion was ruled, it was decreed, the system began, and it had to be taken on, with enormous difficulties," he said. And moreover, over time, he argued, "the number of students in the classroom with special educational needs has been increasing, and support has not increased, neither material nor professional." In this regard, Aguilar gave as an example that most of the time a teacher is alone with 45 or 40 students, including, for example, 10 or even 15 with diagnoses. "So it is very complex, very overwhelming, the work that has to be done today, and adequate conditions are not provided. And to make matters worse, according to what is being projected today with the Budget and with the decisions that have been taken or are being oriented toward the educational system, that could get worse," he pointed out. "We cannot go backward on social rights" Asked about this point and how the proposed cuts to Education in the 2027 Budget could be reflected, Aguilar explained that while people may sometimes feel the discussion is somewhat distant, "it has very concrete translations, for example, in an increase in the number of students per classroom." "They are talking about having to merge classes because costs must be saved, they are talking about firing teachers, when we do not think there are surplus colleagues, because what we have is an enormous overload and burden of work," said the union leader. Along these lines, Aguilar pointed out that both the literature and experience show a downward trend in the number of students per classroom, and in Chile the cuts are aiming in the opposite direction. And this decision, he indicated, is explained only by economic adjustment. Likewise, when asked about the Executive's decision to focus next year's budget on early education with cuts to higher education, the union leader stated that while "it is correct that early education must be supported," what the country must do "is invest more in education, not rob Peter to pay Paul." "Because if early education needs a priority, of course it needs it, but I also believe it was an important achievement that people value greatly, for example, free education for a sector of society," he said. "We cannot go backward on social rights (...) it seems to us that President Kast's promise, who said he would reduce State spending without affecting social rights, is not being fulfilled," he argued. And it is being affected, he indicated, when, for example, there is an attempt to bring class sizes to high numbers, since that will reduce the quality of education, or when co-teaching is being eliminated, or when the aim is to reduce the infrastructure budget. "Now, one also wonders how it can be that, on the one hand, there was a tax reform that took from the State to give to the super-rich," he argued. "The people with the highest incomes in this country received a significant tax cut that meant nearly 2 billion dollars less in revenue (...) one can say that, on the one hand, greater profits are being generated for those who already have exorbitant profits, and education is being taken away, the PC, the computer, is being taken away from the poorest children," he indicated, recalling the possible end of the Eligo Mi PC program. "The government proposes that they not receive it. Is it fair that, to make adjustments, the adjustment happens there, in those needs?" he questioned. See the full interview here: