Father Ugalde Is Outraged, and Rightly So!

Last Sunday was Teachers’ Day. Today I want to talk about Father Luis Ugalde’s article “Public or Private,” published on February 12 in El Nacional. In it he expresses his outrage at the president’s statement that the payment owed by the State to Catholic educators is not his responsibility, “because those are private institutions.”

Ugalde says this was “a slap in the face to those who worked all year in public education with low-income children. I remembered the trials and triumphs, from their very beginnings, of the five AVEC schools in the highest part of La Vega: the government’s educational efforts did not reach that far, and Catholic institutions, together with those poor communities, created schools for their children, partly funded with public money… Eliminate, Mr. President, the Canaima, Andy Aparicio, El Encanto, Olaso and Los Ángeles schools (all of them AVEC, the Venezuelan Association of Catholic Education), and there is not a single public school left for the thousands of children and young people who live between Las Casitas and Las Torres… My outrage reminded me how Fe y Alegría went to Cariaco during the public emergency of the earthquake and continues its extraordinary educational work there, and how the Marist Brothers answered the Ministry’s call to rescue the Santa Catalina farm school (in the Delta) from official ruin and turn it into the model school it is today. On the outskirts are the schools of Carrasquero, Santa Elena de Uairén, Sinamaica and Ciudad Sucre, or the Salesian schools on Ratón Island, La Salle in El Baúl, and hundreds more. How can anyone say that this is not public, that there is no public obligation toward those children, that their parents should pay for their school!”

How is it possible, I say, that the president does not thank and recognize the hard work of thousands of AVEC teachers who are devoted heart and soul (facing countless problems, just like ALL Venezuelan teachers) to their vocation of educating children and young people, so that they may be part of a generation with an excellent academic formation and Christian values?

Ugalde points out that ”… the Agreement between the Ministry of Education and AVEC is based on a commitment to work together to bring quality public education to poor communities. Under it, 2,000 non-state schools and facilities (an investment of more than 10 billion bolívares fuertes) are devoted to public education, where families and society cooperate (with millions in national and international contributions) in running, maintaining and improving them, in synergy with the government of the day. The facilities do not belong to the State, nor is the school management the Government’s, but the education is public in its curriculum, its diplomas and its oversight… Better quality, at half the cost to the State, with wonderful public results. Families contribute less than 10%, and AVEC ensures that state funding arrives transparently… Honest officials ask us how Fe y Alegría or the Franciscan sisters manage to get parents to take the school on as their own. It is because they feel it is theirs (not some distant officials’); maintaining it and caring for it is part of their contribution. A simple answer, but a hard lesson to learn because of the statist distortion, with governments that block and kill the solidarity and participation they preach.”

And he puts in bold: “Is that school not being threatened with death when, instead of the president’s Christmas greetings to its educators with their year-end pay and the raise they are owed, they are told: I do not recognize your public work, because you, your children, your families and your schools are private?”

Father Ugalde is rightly outraged. And many of us feel the same. How long will the government keep scorning the Church’s efficient and selfless service to the most disadvantaged? And I ask: why is it that the waiting lists at these schools are always so long?

I thank Father Ugalde for such an excellent article, in which he shows us a reality few people know and makes clear that in our country there are many honest people working, quietly and tirelessly, to build a country on solid foundations. I congratulate ALL and each one of Venezuela’s teachers (who are giving their lives in the classroom), because their vocation is unique and vital for the development of our homeland. You know that! I especially congratulate the AVEC teachers. Keep going, Venezuela is counting on you!

The full article is at: http://www.cerpe.org.ve/noticias-lector-principal/items/96.html