Today’s Listin Diario editorial column focuses on the millions that the government is making available for political campaigning at a time when children of Batey El Soco public school had to resort to picketing on the highway to demand that the Ministry of Education assign them a teacher. Their teacher is on leave of absence for health reasons, and the department has not sent a replacement. The newspaper points out that this is just another example of all the acute funding deficiencies in the educational system, while there are millions for politics. It says this leads to high dropout rates, juvenile delinquency and an increase in drug addiction. There is not so much money to improve schools, buy desks and pay teachers, writes the editorialist, who highlights that nevertheless, “for political campaigns and for the political parties, the millions flow like flooded rivers.”
The writer concludes: “With that state of upside down priorities, a nation cannot progress nor develop. The incongruence of seeking money for parties and non-governmental organizations that are parasites of the state, while schools lack funding, injures and hurts the national conscience.”