Venezuelan children returned to classes this September – alongside millions around the globe.
Caracas authorities estimate over six million youngsters grudgingly squeezed into their tight-fitting uniforms, shook off stitched-up backpacks and dug out their dog-eared textbooks after the summer break.
But what awaited them when they trudged down to the country’s 27,000 schools with a tempered mix of trepidation, excitation and maybe even loathing rippling through their heads? Had authorities painted or repaired their classrooms, had they supplied new backpacks and classroom equipment, what delights might the school meals program offer, as they used to, some years ago?
Many will have been somewhat bummed with what they found, as authorities increasingly double down on wooing large foreign industrial capital instead of funding social spending.
While the dastardly Delcy & Donald duo jump and shout to publicly laud their “successes” in securing dizzying billion-dollar investments in oil and gas, mines and the electrical grid, their screaming silence over the education sector deafens teachers and parents alike, who look on at the government’s budget flex that leaves swathes of the next generation bumfuzzled.
Government ‘fairy tales’
A peep into the state of the schools was provided by the Venezuelan Teachers’ Federation (FVM) – one of the sector’s largest labor federations that groups dozens of smaller unions – and its damning statement on the eve of the new school year.
The FVM blasted deficiencies in schooling infrastructure, including the lack of constant drinking water (1-in-4 schools suffered deficiencies in 2025) and electricity, as well as the almost complete absence of the school meals program.
Other unions and unionists echoed those criticisms. In the populous western state of Zulia, for example, trade unionist Gualberto Mas claimed that, “8 out of 10 schools [in Zulia] lack electricity and regular running water, they don’t have enough desks… this is a shameful start to the school year,” while in the eastern Bolívar state, 80% of schools were not in suitable conditions, according to the region’s College of Professors.
The FVM also slammed the education minister’s recent comments about achieving a “marvelous” school year 2026-27 through “hugs”, “happiness” and “reading a story” to children – all seeking to create a Cinderella-narrative of magic, rags-to-riches, and wonder in the reportedly deeply broken system.
“Venezuelan families don’t need ministerial recommendations nor sermons about how to listen to or show affection to their children,” the FVM hit back. “Venezuelan parents look in the eyes of their children and find the crude reality of dismantled school sites and an education system in ruins on a daily basis. The families need the attention of the State.”
“The reality is not a fairy tale… It is not a lack of hugs or affection in the home that violates children’s right to an education, but the State that has incurred in a flagrant abandonment of its Constitutional obligation and commitment to society to guarantee a free, public, obligatory and quality education system.” No fairy godmothers here!
Teacher bonuses worth $0.015
The FVM also highlighted widespread aghast at the recent bonus paid to the 500-600,000 teachers to start the new school year. It described the 12.50 bolivar bonus (the equivalent of one and a half cents of a US dollar, which couldn’t even buy you a few magic beans) as “cynicism in its maximum expression.”
The trade union also castigated the government’s wage destruction policy, which – despite claims from the seven dwarfs in the Education Ministry – sees most teachers earn $0.30-$1.50 a month in wages, with incomes supplemented by sporadic and non-universal bonuses. Sick, holiday, and layoff pay, other benefits like Christmas bonuses, and pensions are all calculated from the less-than-$5 wages without taking into account the supplementary bonuses. The basic family food basket to keep the wolf at the door was estimated to be $727 in August.
“Bonuses are not wages,” screamed the FVM’s statement, repeating a now-household slogan heard at the ever-frequent ample cross-sector protests, marches, and strikes that have been going on for over three years, with the FVM arguing that “the base wage has been completely destroyed.”
“Educational quality cannot be achieved through rhetoric nor empty promises,” it said. “It is built with adequate budgets, functional schools and respected, trained and well-paid teachers,” – a statement most working Venezuelan families would agree with regardless of their political tendencies or that of the FVM.
Parents’ dilemma
But as with the three bears coming home to find their porridge all gone, in this fairy tale it is not just teachers who feel the pinch.
Families (including that of yours truly) are also struggling, and the pre-school-year crunch forces them to make some tough decisions, transcending strife in the classrooms and penetrating nearly all sectors of society.
With school uniforms costing as much as $150, school insurance up to $50, and the detested “lists” of classroom equipment schools demand from each student (including everything from pens and pencils to cleaning products and basic medical supplies) often totaling more than $100, parents struggle to wield their magic wands with their $5, $50, or even $200 Tom Thumb monthly wages.
Many also face the conundrum of where their children should study.
The once-“marvelous” public school system – which covers about 84% of Venezuela’s educational enrollment – offers a close-by and free option. However, most public schools don’t even have a whiteboard marker or enough chairs in the classroom, with exploited working parents forced to supply nearly everything. An estimated 97,000 teachers (1/5th of the entire educational workforce) have climbed the beanstalk and fled the country in search of better wages, while those who remain often work other jobs to survive. This has left many classrooms devoid of trained staff (an estimated 60% shortage in sciences, 70% in social sciences, 40% in Spanish and literature, 80% in foreign languages). School hours are also sometimes reduced to a handful on an every-other-day basis, severely and deeply affecting the academic level of the public system and leaving parents to “pedagogically reinforce” at home, if they have the time and knowhow, to prepare their children with even the minimum tools they need for the future.
The private system, including Catholic or subsidized schools, is no longer just a “bourgeois” option, despite landing US-dollar fees ($50-$100 or more a month). These schools offer better conditions and have managed to maintain mostly decent teachers through higher salaries, securing largely superior academic levels. However, most also demand inscription fees (up to $100), “special” contributions for repairs or building maintenance (up to $100), school insurance, and the classroom equipment “list” as well, summing a pretty penny all in all that even Dick Whittington — the legendary poor country boy who traveled to London and became a fabulously rich merchant and Lord Mayor — might struggle to pay.
This conundrum has led many working families to consider unsustainable household sacrifices to prioritize academic instruction and send their children to subsidized private schools, while thousands more are left with their pipe dreams as the cost-of-living crisis, coupled with dollar inflation and frozen wages, render such hopes untenable.
For others, this unsolvable equation proved a major driving force behind their decision to emigrate, in search of better wages but also for a future for their children.
Others opt not to send their children to school at all. An estimated 1.5m children were left out of enrollment lists in 2024, and a 2023 survey showed that reasons for children not attending school included the need to work (46%), early pregnancy (30%), home care activities (26%) and the lack of resources for transportation (24%).
Sanctions, mismanagement and corruption
As with all aspects of the Venezuelan economic collapse, the causes of educational deterioration are multiple and bounce off each other.
Some may read this reality of the material conditions with one word on the tip of their tongue: sanctions. To these readers, I would say, yes, sure, but they can’t be used to whitewash other slap-in-the-face failings from the PSUV government. Where are the sanctions against producing pens and paper locally? Where are the sanctions forcing the Venezuelan state to destroy teachers’ wages while officials continue stealing millions? How do sanctions stop the government from developing a policy line to attract good teachers back to the country?
Sanctions certainly hampered Venezuela’s ability to import key repair parts for the electrical grid or water network. They certainly crippled oil output and the GDP, thus forcing budget cutbacks. This is undeniable, and notoriously criminal.
However, government corruption, mismanagement, and the prioritization of other budget groups (like $13.5 billion external debt maintenance), as well as the current complete tutelage to Washington’s neoliberal economic agenda, are also major factors in the deterioration of the educational sector.
How many teachers could have been better paid with the $21 billion former oil minister Tareck El Aissami stole or the $195 million Alex Saab “offered” to pay from his money laundering? Why is the government running a ‘My Church is Well Equipped’ scheme but it is working parents who have to buy the notepads and chalk in the classrooms? If the GDP has grown for 21 consecutive trimesters, profits are growing, so why have wages been frozen for four and a half years and bonuses are so ridiculously low?
Given this reality, it is understandable that the minister’s call for more “hugs”, the government’s $0.01 bonus, and the clear deterioration of educational infrastructure, while contrasted with massive investments in other sectors, dismantlement of US sanctions, and abundant budget allocation in other priorities have been met with anger and outrage by the working class.
The measures will only flare the labor conflict in the educational sector, which has been one of the most dynamic over past years, often spurring other industries to come out and strike in solidarity as they try to huff and puff to blow this house down – with new university protests planned for September 24. But mass protests and marches have been met with more of the same by the government, with the wage destruction policy now leaving government backers nowhere to hide.
As a parent myself, the sensitivity of educational disinvestment tugs at my heartstrings, transcending political discourses and bringing back fond memories of Chavez-era public schools equipped with all the items they needed, including well-trained and well-paid teachers. This was no fairy tale.
While a boost in oil, gas, or mining will inevitably bring a quick dime to the dastardly D&D duo running the show in Venezuela, it will mostly reside in a US bank account and take decades to trickle down to Venezuelan schools, if the forty thieves even allow it to do so.
This leaves one asking: what does this spell for the future of Venezuela, and where will the doctors, engineers, and teachers of tomorrow come from, given the huge generational education lag being created?
- First published at mltoday.