For this 2023, people who enter to study a pedagogy career with 625 average points (arithmetic average between the Language exam and the Mathematics exam) in the Higher Education Access Test (PAES) can study this career for free. The same with 595 average points in certain cases. All this thanks to the Vocation of Professor Scholarship (BVP).
The BVP is not new: it was implemented since 2011, requiring at least 600 average points in the PSU (current PAES) to be awarded the scholarship, which the Government disseminated “with great fanfare” by indicating that people who obtained at least 720 average points, in addition to studying for free, would have a semester abroad during the career, In addition to $ 80,000 per month from March to December in the years of the pedagogy career to use them as they wanted. In reference to the exchange semester, the authorities indicated things like “we want teachers in training to achieve significant learning abroad”, “we want there to be professional development of the future teacher”, “we want teachers of excellence in our country”, among others.
The scholarship was awarded by several students since 2011, without any inconvenience for these students. However, a problem has occurred since March 2020: pandemic and its border closures, which means that the BVP’s semester abroad benefit cannot be used to travel to another country.
What happens for 2021? First, it is worth mentioning that the Budget Law for 2021 did not consider the benefit of semester abroad, justifying the Government in that the benefit should be suspended given that the COVID-19 pandemic continued. Again, teachers in training were harmed: for example, some graduated without being able to use the benefit (they could not use it at the beginning of the career because one of the requirements stipulated by the scholarship is to have 60% of the career approved to carry out the exchange semester).
And what about 2022? Despite the fact that there were open borders, the Government chooses not to consider the benefit of semester abroad of the BVP in the Budget Law for the year 2022. Reasons? They don’t deliver. With this, some educators or professors who entered the university in 2018 and 2019 are tremendously harmed: they graduate without being able to use their exchange semester benefit. The state only deluded them.
And 2023? Even though the pandemic is quite controlled in the world, again the State prefers not to give money for the benefit in its Budget Law. Affected? Students who entered in 2019 and 2020 to study pedagogy and who are graduating in 2023: they will not be able to make use of the benefit promised by the State.
As students harmed by this whole situation, we organized ourselves at the national level, and in August 2022 all this problem was exposed to the Undersecretary of Higher Education to achieve a reparatory measure, with which they indicated that they would analyze the situation and respond to us, but to date we have not had any response from the entity.
For the moment, we are young people that the State simply excited, we are young people who meet the conditions that the State demanded of us to have an excellent opportunity to develop our potential as future teachers, future mediators, future guides of the new generations of school students; An opportunity for a semester of exchange that we could not materialize, a disappointment that still has no repair.
Follow us on
The content expressed in this opinion column is the sole responsibility of its author, and does not necessarily reflect the editorial line or position of El Mostrador.
