The head of the Ministry of Education and Science (MEC), Nicolás Zárate, issued his opinion regarding the populist proposals that appeared within the framework of the presidential campaign by certain candidates. The minister urged presidential candidates to be clear with their proposals because the public “is not stupid.”

“If this is not achieved, the residents are not stupid, the residents know what can be done and what cannot. That they say where they are going to get resources from, because there are only three ways, through taxes, loans or inorganic issuance, that they tell us what they are going to do, something more than words,” the minister said when he left the Government Palace on the morning of this Friday the 24th.

One approach related to education, and which is being strongly questioned from various sectors, is the Childhood without Hunger programme, promoted by the candidate for Concert President, Efraín Alegre, who proposes replacing school lunches and snacks with money transfers.

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Opposition political actors such as Hugo Richer, Sixto Pereira and Jorge Querey expressed their disapproval of this approach and questioned it due to their ignorance of public policy. Senator Blanca Ovelar also spoke up and claimed that this was Alegre’s proposal to sound attractive within the framework of her election campaign.

On the other hand, the former director of the Trauma Hospital Aníbal Filártiga warned that eliminating food could cause 50% of children and adolescents to drop out of school, considering that the lunches and snacks provided in schools are a motivation for children to attend school. .

Recently, economist and former Minister of Finance Lea Giménez pointed out that Efraín Alegre’s proposal violates certain articles of the constitution which stipulate that the State must guarantee the nutrition of children. “Don’t let a candidate’s human ignorance and insensitivity undermine such an important social achievement. Social policies are not replaced by money,” he said through his social network.

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