Deputy “Bertie” Benegas Lynch said that he does not believe in mandatory education and crossed the entire opposition arc

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The national representative of Libertad Avanza, Alberto “Bertie” Benegas Lynch, stated this Sunday that he does not believe in compulsory education, while he questioned the interference that the State exercises over families. He also suggested that those who do not have the “luxury of sending their child to school” could put minors to work. His statements generated criticism from across the opposition.

“I don’t believe in compulsory education.. It is a responsibility of the parents. “You want to give your son the best,” Benegas Lynch said in an interview with Romina Lack in FM Millennium 106.7. Along these lines, the legislator, representative of the province of Buenos Aires, added: “Many times it can happen on the ranch, and especially in Argentina, which You cannot afford to send your son to school because you need him in the workshop with his father working. and you can’t send him to university.”

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“How is the State going to be the one to decide about the boy? “I can’t even think of a more invasive thing,” said the pro-government legislator who arrived in the Chamber of Deputies last December. Despite supporting this discursive line, Benegas Lynch added: “Education is the axis of civilization. How can you think of giving a committee of bureaucrats the decision about education? To the State? “To the Ministry of Education?”

For Benegas Lynch, “what a family is supposed to do” is that they bring “a child into the world to educate him, to protect him, to make him a better person, and to change the world.” “So, how does it occur to you that the bureaucrat of a government house is going to have better intentions? Is he going to say what people have to do?” He added and closed: “I believe in the individualI believe in the decisions we make in our lives, and I believe that The State is alone to protect individual rights and administer justice“.

Criticism from the entire opposition arch: Macristas, Peronists, radicals and the left against Benegas Lynch

Various leaders referred to the controversial statements of the libertarian deputy to reject his position regarding education. One of them was Pablo AvellutoSecretary of the Government of Culture of the Nation during the presidency of Mauricio Macri, who on his X account (formerly Twitter) repudiated: “The freedom to be ignorant. “The freedom of being an ignorant deputy”.

Avelluto then postulated that “In the future we will remember this time with shame for not having done more to prevent it from happening” and, finally, he said: “My dad had to start working when he was 8 years old. Born in 1938 and the only son of a single mother, there was no alternative at home. Sadly, he passed away many years ago. If I were alive, I would go trumpet the ignorant deputy to tell him what child labor is all about.”.

The former executive director of PAMI, also during the presidency of Mauricio Macri, Carlos Javier Regazzonijoined the criticism: “Compulsory education. The world of children without compulsory schooling and without public education is not freedom”, he pointed out and attached an image from 1911 that shows dozens of minors and infants working in a coal mine, in Pennsylvania, United States.

Daniel Filmus, Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation of the Nation under Alberto Fernández, analyzed: “B. Lynch explains why they are against compulsory education and in favor of child labor: ‘They can’t afford to go to school because they have to be in the workshop with their father.’ Does he know that it was JA Roca who imposed 1420?“, he said in reference to the law that establishes common, free and compulsory primary education.

Maximiliano Ferraro, president of the ARI Civic Coalition and national deputy, also reacted to the libertarian’s statement on social networks, with a text titled “Not with the boys.” “Deputy Benegas Lynch, Law 26,390 prohibits child labor in Argentina. The National Constitution has incorporated various international conventions that protect the rights of children, including the right not to be exploited and the right to education. His position goes back 140 years, since Law 1420 was sanctioned in 1884”, he highlighted.

“Nicolás Avellaneda, Julio Argentino Roca and Domingo Faustino Sarmiento would be dismayed by his liberal approach. It is important to remember that education is mandatory and that the protection of children’s rights is fundamental if we want a free, fair, equal and equitable society,” continued Ferraro, who then invited the official to read “the debates of the Pedagogical Congress of 1882 and Law 1420”.

The national representative also spoke out for the Workers’ Party Romina del Plawho maintained: “Exploitative mentalityit is not enough to expropriate the work of adults, it also wants to expand child labor, which we remember, is prohibited. Literally a return to the 19th century”, and the Buenos Aires deputy Gabriel Solano, who pointed out: “This is a libertarian: the freedom to exploit children in factories and in the countryside.”

Likewise, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) also made a publication to reject the libertarian’s statements, but without mentioning him. “Working distances boys and girls from their right to learn, play and grow happily. For every childhood #RightToEducation”, they communicated.

ML / ED