The Association of Private Educational Institutions (Ainep) says it is not surprised at the reaction of the Minister of Education who they said was trying to pitch the people against the private schools. Minister of Education Amarante Baret said that the parents should “stand up and fight” against tuition increases. Ainep said that in reality they are the ones who should “stand up and fight” since they seem to be the only sort of enterprise that apparently does not have the right to readjust their costs (tuition) as if they were immune to inflation and as if their employees did not have the right to aspire to better salaries. In a letter sent to the editor of El Caribe, Ainep president Rafael H Rodriguez stressed the superiority of the private schools and he said that the ministry should be grateful for their quality. Claiming that the ministry is discriminating against private schools, the letter says that they are forced to comply with regulations that were drawn up “behind our backs” and without listening to their opinions, although the regulations say that they were consulted.
The strongly worded document sent to the newspaper said that they were questioning whether the ministry was trying to eliminate the private schools in order to build another 10,000 classrooms that the increased demand would require, “but they would never compete with us in quality, because we do not act under political principles, but under professional criteria.” Ainep mentioned a study conducted several years ago that found that the cost per student in the public system was more expensive than in most of the private schools.