Paraguay Forum for the Right to Education and students protest against the Higher Education Law Project

Photo: Paraguay Forum

Students’ representatives from the University and Social Coordination, formed by people from the National University and the Paraguay Forum for the Right to Education –coalition allied to CLADE – have been opposing to the Higher Education Law Project (LES, by its acronym in Spanish), wrote by the country’s Bicameral Commission (click here to read the official version).

Through a declaration, the students claim that the project sees higher education as a profitable object, and not as a right that implies a quality education in itself.

The youth, supported by the Paraguay Forum for the Right to Education, reject the project, questioning the following points:

- The conformation of the regulating bodies of Higher Education (which make clear the priority given to the marketisation, privatisation and corporatism in education);

- The creation of the ANACES (National Agency responsible for guaranteeing Higher Education Quality), which is seen to favour the profit making on education; it is also considered to be unnecessary, since there already exists an Agency with the same attributions;

- The creation of private accreditation agencies;

- The non-existence of a system to grant loans to the most economically vulnerable people;

Besides the declaration, representatives of Paraguay Forum and students protested on the streets against the project. They have plans of making a large hearing in order to build an alternative proposal to the Education Law with all the interested people and also to discuss the current model of development.

To read the declaration, please visit Paraguay Forum’s website: http://www.foroderechoeducacion.org.py/noticias/llamado-urgente-para-reunion-sobre-les (in Spanish)

(Source: Foro Derecho Educación Paraguay)