The Consciousness Association held its annual dinner this Tuesday and put at the center of the national debate the need to generate a “federal educational agreement” to achieve a better level of education for children, an improvement in school infrastructure and an increase in the rate of young people who finish school. This is how the new Executive Director described it in his words, Juan Manuel Fernández Alves.
“Are we really capable of thinking that Argentina’s best days are yet to come? For us, yes. Because there are no unviable Argentines. In any case, there are some who are born with more or less opportunities. Every day we leave everything to try to level that field,” he said.
Along the same lines, he highlighted that “the educational completion rate in secondary school is 37% in the poorest place in Argentina, while in the places with more resources, it reaches the 85%”. And he added, in a clear message to the political system: “This happens in an Argentina that hurts us, where 7 out of 10 children grow up in poor places.”
Fernández said during his speech that they will not tire of “proposing agreements to the political class” and highlighted that “Argentina deserves a federal educational agreement,” since that is a “step in the right direction.” In addition, he assured that we must move forward with “school infrastructure and teacher training,” and asked that this claim “not remain in a speech.”
“We have to encourage ourselves to dream about the beginning of a new path that has education at the center”was the end of his presentation, which led to a joint photo with the political leaders who had attended the event, among whom there were a large number of national government officials and members of the PRO.
The former president was present at the Stock Exchange Mauricio Macri; the leaders of the PRO Federico Pinedo and Fernando Straface; the mayor of Tres de Febrero, Diego Valenzuela; the radical deputy Martin Tetaz; the Head of Government of Buenos Aires, Jorge Macri; the Buenos Aires legislator Roberto García Moritan; the governor of Córdoba, Martin Llaryora and the secretary of parliamentary relations, Omar De Marchi.
On the national government side, the Chief of Staff, Guillermo Francos; the presidential spokesperson, Manuel Adorni; the Secretary of Tourism, Daniel Scioli; the Secretary of Education, Carlos Torrendell; the Minister of Justice, Mariano Cúneo Libarona; the Buenos Aires legislator Ramiro Marra and the Legal and Technical Secretary of the Presidency, Javier Herrera Bravo.
There were also two opposition leaders of Peronism, such as the former Minister of Science and Technology, Daniel Filmus and the mayor of Escobar, Ariel Sujarchuck.
Silvana Vivespresident of Conciencia, assured that “Training young people is embarking on the path of rebuilding a new Argentina”. He emphasized the concept of “new” because “Argentina must be focused on the urgency of the children.” “They must study and acquire the tools to be able to get their first job and enter the labor market,” she said.
“Countries grow and economies develop when democratic governments succeed one another, and in that process only the political color and the country’s project change. Democracy and capitalism can go hand in hand. But it is important to understand that it is the people who give meaning to any project. “The country is the people who live in it and the most important thing the country has are its young people,” Vives analyzed.
The president considered that “Despite the comings and goings, Argentina is a viable country that can include us all” and stated that “there lies the true secret of development.” In that sense, he stressed that “listening, empathy, respect for the opinion of others and the construction of positions, adding everyone’s views, are the values that run through the Consciousness program.
In the final section of his speech he was forceful about the central theme of the dinner. “For us, education is the only engine of progress. It is the true tool of social transformation. And, in the long term, what will enable economic progress,” he stated.
Then, he concluded: “Education is the number one point of any pact that we Argentines make. Only with education can we be free. We have the enormous responsibility of putting education in the place it should be on the agenda of democracy.”
