“Education of the Government of the City of Buenos Aires implements in state-run educational establishments the general security guidelines established by this law,” refers to the text of standard 1706 that establishes universal security points in public schools. In addition, the document orders each school building to be provided with accident prevention strategies, equipment and even the adoption of school protection and safety systems in all its facets.
Those who have worked for years in the City’s educational system assure that the Buenos Aires government fails to comply with Law 1706, passed in 2005, which establishes general safety guidelines in schools. The violation of this norm includes several items that affect the already precarious conditions of the school infrastructure, the lack of equipment and even the lack of measures that leave schools defenseless and enable vandalization and theft. A report carried out by the Unión por la Patria bloc assures that Jorge Macri cut the budget intended to comply with this Law by 82%.
«The Buenos Aires government and in particular those in charge of Security, Waldo Wolff and Diego Kravetz, are not being able to manage and resolve the security conflicts that the City is having. “This has an impact on the quality of life of all Buenos Aires residents,” warns Maru Bielli, UP deputy.
The Buenos Aires legislator’s team prepared a report that makes it clear that the current City government made a strong budget cut in the area of Risk Mitigation and the Safe Schools Law. “In nominal terms it fell 55% compared to 2023. If the estimated inflation of 150% for 2024 is taken, the budget allocated to this program fell 82%,” says the document, which is based on the 2023 budget of $1,444. ,104,258 in the sector and in which this year the accrual represents just over 638 million pesos.
For the representative of the political organization “El Hormiguero” this seriously affects schools in terms of insecurity: “It is something repeated, systematic, obviously there are organized mafias behind it and it is clear that they cannot deactivate it or prevent it. Security must be guaranteed in educational establishments. This is also linked to the discussion of fugitives who escape from police stations. “These are the problems that we have to discuss when talking about security rather than the heavy-handed marketing of Jorge Macri at the service of Javier Milei,” he concludes.
In the last three months, around twenty public schools in the City were victims of robberies, several of them on more than one occasion. Alerted by the wave of insecurity, thousands of families from the educational community formed the new group “Safe Public Schools” to stop the wave of thefts in CABA. After several months of complaints, the families were summoned by the Education Commission of the Buenos Aires Legislature.
«We have thousands of proposals, because in addition to being families and ad honorem collaborators all the time, we are also preparing proposals to solve this. We need, please, to continue listening to the community and for that will to be transformed into a solution,” said Anastasia Meizoso, a member of the Juan Pedro Esnaola Music School Cooperator who suffered several thefts and acts of vandalism, during the meeting.
The School is located in an educational center of Saavedra where there are four educational institutions. Among them, the Technical School N°36 DE 15 Almirante Guillermo Brown, which in recent months they tried to enter three times. «There is private security at that pole, but even so they entered. This happens at dawn, on holidays, on weekends. We can’t wait to explain to our children, six-year-olds, that they are afraid to go to school because they broke in four times to steal. “School is home,” Meizoso added.
One of the legislators who promoted the organization of this meeting was the FIT deputy Gabriel Solano: «It is essential to begin to remedy this situation, we know that for Jorge Macri security is only the repression of the pickets or the expulsion of the most impoverished people who “They have fallen into street situations, but for us it is something else, it is that educational work can be carried out properly in schools,” he told Tiempo Solano.
The left-wing deputy also promoted a call to hold an urgent meeting of the authorities with the Ministry of Education, with the cooperators, the unions and the presence of the legislators. “The objective is to find an immediate solution that, from what was said, from the study that was carried out, will have as one of its components the appointment of landlords and watchmen in educational establishments.”
The emptying that affects insecurity
Preliminary data from a survey carried out by the Working Conditions and Environment Commission (CyMAT) of UTE-Ctera, revealed that there were 75 robberies in public schools in the City that occurred in the last two years, 90% occurred in school buildings that They don’t have landlords. “In other words, nine out of ten schools are unguarded and there is no possibility of dissuading or calling someone if there is any abnormal situation,” Pablo Francisco, head of the organization, explained during the meeting. “Another situation is that seven out of ten of these thefts occur on the weekend or on a holiday, or during vacations, that is, when there is no activity at school,” he added. «
