Federalism, School Reforms, and the Principle of Equality in Argentina

Federalismo, reformas escolares y principio de igualdad en Argentina

https://doi.org/10.4438/1988-592X-RE-2023-400-576

Guillermo Ramón Ruiz

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8170-2191

Universidad de Buenos Aires - CONICET

Abstract

Education as a human right shows challenges when it is regulated in federal states, especially considering the principle of equality. The educational policies initiated in the first decade of this century in Argentina have had an impact on the principle of equality (which is the basis of this human right) since the reform was developed in the context of a federal state. Federalism by definition recognizes the differences between its member States, but the risk is that they generate inequalities in the population due to their places of residence. However, it cannot become an excuse to justify the State's non-compliance with human rights (within its territories). In methodological terms, the design of this research includes qualitative techniques, among which the normative legal analysis and the consequent generation of comparative typification of the sources considered stand out. Quantitative techniques were also used for the analysis of statistics in order to measure educational enrollment. RESULTS. Definitions of federalism and its implications in terms of academics and school coverage, considering contemporary reform processes, are discussed. In particular, the evolution of the affordability of the right to education in terms of compulsory schooling (encompassing pre-school, primary and secondary education) is analyzed. Although all levels are included in the tables, the focus is on primary education since the available information does not allow for inter-annual comparisons in the 2005-2020 period for secondary education. It is noted that, although Argentina has regulated the right to education with a high degree of normativity, the results of the reforms have led to an increase in inequality in the context of federalism, which is coupled with the historical trend towards the fragmented diversification of the school system.

Keywords: federalism, right to education, reforms, educational politics, educational inequalities.

Resumen

El derecho a la educación evidencia desafíos cuando es regulado en Estados federales sobre todo en función del principio de igualdad. Las políticas educativas iniciadas en la primera década de este siglo en la Argentina han impactado sobre dicho principio (el cual está en la base de este derecho humano) debido a que fueron reformas desarrolladas en un Estado federal. El federalismo por principio reconoce las diferencias entre sus Estados parte, pero el riesgo es que ellas generen desigualdades en la población debido a sus lugares de residencia. Sin embargo, el federalismo no puede convertirse en una excusa para justificar el incumplimiento de los derechos humanos por parte del Estado (en el interior de sus territorios). En términos metodológicos el diseño de esta investigación incluye técnicas cualitativas entre las que se destacan el análisis jurídico normativo y la generación de tipificaciones comparativas de las fuentes consideradas. También se utilizaron técnicas cuantitativas en el análisis de estadísticas para poder dimensionar la cobertura educativa. Se plantean definiciones relativas al federalismo y sus implicancias en términos académicos y de la cobertura escolar, a la luz de los procesos de reformas. En particular se analiza la evolución de la accesibilidad del derecho a la educación en función de la escolarización obligatoria (inicial, primario y secundario). Si bien en las tablas se incluyen todos los niveles, se hace foco en la educación primaria ya que la información disponible no permite realizar comparaciones inter-anuales en el período 2005-2020 para la secundaria. Se advierte que, si bien la Argentina ha regulado con una alta normatividad el derecho a la educación, los resultados de las reformas han dado lugar a un incremento de la desigualdad en el contexto del federalismo que se acoplan en la histórica tendencia a la diversificación dispersa del sistema escolar.

Palabras clave: federalismo, derecho a la educación, reformas, políticas educativas, desigualdades educativas.

Introduction: The Educational System in the Argentine Federal State

This article analyses the results of educational reforms implemented in Argentina, in light of the country’s status as federal State. The legislation of year 2006 regulates the exercise of the right to education and introduces academic reforms constituting a non-negotiable legal framework that subnational States must observe despite their different capacities to face such changes. The results of such reforms are thus put under scrutiny in relation to the principle of equality, the basis of fundamental human rights. The evolution of accessibility —one of the most illustrative indicators of the right to education— evidences that the application of reforms has intensified the historical trend towards a disjointed diversification of the system. This paper discusses some definitions associated with federalism and their implications in curricular and education coverage terms, in light of the referred contemporary reform processes. To that end, the analysis includes normative and statistical data accounting for several incongruences which stem from the reforms’ high normativity levels and low degree of effectiveness.

When analysing federal educational reforms, it is worth considering the government’s capacity to implement them. To that end, it is of utmost importance to understand the characteristics of a federal State. On a first approach from the etymology of the term will show that federal comes from the Latin word foedus, and the notion of treaty. Federalism emerged as a division of power in relation with territory and is conceived as a pluralist system in which different government activities are distributed between the central State and the member States (Loewenstein, 1957). Different classifications of federalisms can be mentioned (Hernández, 2018; Gibson and Falleti, 2007), such as: integrative and devolutionary ones; federalisms for the division of power or related to cultural identity; symmetrical or asymmetrical federalisms. Symmetry refers to the existing level of conformity in the relations of each political unit to both the system as a whole and to other component units (Tarlton, 1965). To find an entirely symmetrical federal State is a difficult venture. At any rate, the idea of treaty denoted by the etymological definition also explains the existing asymmetries in federal States. The more each unit participates, the higher the probability that federalism becomes an adequate form of organisation. The features of this form of State include: a) the existence of provincial constitutions; b) the constitutional and legislative autonomy of each member State; c) a limited government, with a separation of powers and cross-control mechanisms; d) the division of power in a territory, that is, different levels of government —federal, national, regional, local—, and distribution of competencies; e) the judicial review of laws; f) the resolution of disputes by an independent court; g) a bicameral legislature representing federal interests vis a vis national-based interests; and h) an appropriate financial system (Suelt Cook, 2018).

Argentina is an example of a form of federation called coming-together (Stepan, 1999), i.e. an arrangement by which previously sovereign units agree to transfer such sovereignty to a superior State unit, but reserve competencies for themselves. For that reason, Argentine provinces are considered to have original and indefinite powers, while in the case of the national State, delegated powers¹. Primary education is among the exclusive competencies that provincial States have reserved for themselves. Based on the principle enshrined in Article 121 of the Constitution, Article 5 provides that provinces are responsible for primary education in their territories, while Article 75(18) and Article 75(19) establish that the Argentine Congress shall enact laws on the education system organisation and basis. A harmonic interpretation of these provisions and of Articles 124 and 125 enables the federal State and the provinces to create consensus policies, since education is an overlapping competency between both levels of government (Ruiz, 2020).

However, throughout its history, Argentina has experienced a centralisation process (which affected schooling) caused by numerous reasons, such as the expansion of the federal government without any resistance on the part of provincial governments, and the concentration of socioeconomic resources in the Buenos Aires area, resulting in an unbalanced development of the country. Argentina is an administratively decentralised federation with a high geographic concentration of productive resources and various interprovincial inequalities. Moreover, its subnational States have a tendency to concentrate powers and resources internally, undermining in turn the capacity of municipal governments (Leiras, 2013; Bernal and Bizarro, 2020).

Although federalism acknowledges on principle the differences among its member States, the risk is that such differences might generate inequalities among he country’s inhabitants due to their place of residence. This is particularly important with respect to the rights which, as is the case of education, are recognised to the entire population by the Constitution. Thus, when conceptualising the right to education in a federal State, and considering the entire population in so doing, then the importance of the principle of equality should be highlighted. Aldao and Clérico (2019) propose different formulas to define it: 1) formal equality, which emerges from a classification created by the lawmaker and enables to distinguish formal categories but fails to examine the reasons or construction criteria for such categories; 2) material legal equality, which is concerned with the legitimacy of the classification criteria and the reasons on which the selection is based; 3) equality as a form of redistribution and recognition, which seeks to evidence material and symbolic inequalities, and is therefore a goal to be attained². Bobbio (2020) notes that equality refers to a relationship which, to be interpreted, needs to answer the question “equal to whom or to what”. On that basis, Bolívar (2005) distinguishes four combined forms of educational equality: two of them are deemed elitist —equality for some in everything, equality for a few in something—, while the remaining two are not —equality for everyone in everything (the most radical stance), and equality for everyone in something. The latter would be the most attainable in educational terms, and within the federal State, it places the focus on the characteristics of schooling subsystems to verify if the population actually exercises its right to education in an equal manner³.

Method: Regulations, Statistics, and the Subnational Dimension of Reforms

Within a State like the Argentine, the subnational dimension becomes important to analyse educational reforms, due to the intergovernmental relations between the federal and provincial States. This calls for a consideration of the way in which these relations have been redesigned in the past decades, and a view of those transformations from there (González and Lardone, 2012). Each sphere in subnational politics is relevant for different reasons. The educational realm has undergone repeated reforms resulting in different outcomes in the multiple reformed areas (curricula, mandatory nature of schooling, and others), and the impact of those reforms on the provincial level calls for an examination of intergovernmental relations (Bernal and Bizarro, 2020). In Argentina, from the distribution of competencies deriving from the national Constitution, it follows that subnational governments are the ones which administrate their own schooling systems, while the federal State sets the floor in political, academic, and budgetary terms. This was extremely evident in the education system recurrent reform processes of the past decades due to the interdependence of measures established by the base laws enacted (Law No. 24195 in 1993 and Law No. 26206 in 2006).

This path began with Law No. 24049 of 1992. Although this rule put an end to the policy of transferring national educational services, a practice that had begun 30 years before, it caused a rearrangement of the relations among the different government levels of the educational system⁴. Consequently, the Federal Education Board [Consejo Federal de Educación] became central as an arena for the negotiation of educational policies that were to be later applied by provincial States⁵. This led, from the 1990s onwards, to an exponential growth of intergovernmental relations regarding educational matters, something that affected the reform processes because provincial States presented different institutional and bureaucratic capacities, which in turn were not accompanied by proactive actions from the national government. Such actions would have guaranteed an equitable and equal application of the changes in the system as a whole⁶. Moreover, the implementation of reforms were to meet very tight deadlines —especially curricular ones— without adequate planning to ensure the changes would be similar throughout the country. This resulted in differential system coverages, one of the most visible dimensions of the right to education.

Studying a curriculum entails an analysis of the institutionalised forms of educational intervention, characterised by strategies for the classification and control of official knowledge (De Alba, 1995; Goodson, 1995). A curriculum is an educational political project encompassing information, procedures and cognitive strategies both already developed and to be developed through the interaction between students and teachers. A curriculum can be studied as an object of State intervention as it expresses a public policy associated with the processes to select and disseminate culture. It constitutes a policy with different realisation levels, especially in federal States which envision subnational dimensions, with adaptations that influence teaching and learning processes. When analysing the curricular implications of the 2006 education law in the context of the Argentine federal State, a number of complex issues arise⁷.

Firstly, there are the changes introduced by such legislation in the academic structure of the education system. Along with the modifications as to the compulsory nature of schooling, the transformations in this dimension have had consequences that affected financing, the organisation of institutions, inter-jurisdictional coordination, and coverage. The law reinstated the Primary and Secondary denominations of the education systems, to replace the ones of Basic General Education or EGB [Educación General Básica] and Polymodal Education [Educación Polimodal], but with different durations (Section 134)⁸. This decision has formalised inequality, since provincial States had to choose between two duration alternatives: either a 7 or 6 year-duration (for primary school), and a 5 or 6-year duration (for secondary school). As a result, 12 jurisdictions have applied the former, while the remaining 12, the latter.

These two options reflect a resistance to changing the structure established in the previous reform, as well as the lack of an appropriate diagnosis on the provincial States’ capacity to instrument such changes. An aspect that Law No. 26206 was supposed to solve was the different durations of primary and secondary school. However, the law formalises the inter-jurisdictional difference and fails to consider the teaching purposes of these educational levels, which has an impact on the scope of the content of the right to education (Ruiz, 2020).

Secondly, in curricular terms, Law No. 26206 maintains the scheme envisaged by its predecessor: a pursued consensus regarding content at federal level and the approval of jurisdictions on curricular designs; however, there are some modifications. On the one hand, it establishes the mandatory application of the resolutions issued by the Federal Education Board (among them, curricular ones). This seeks to prevent academic fragmentations like the ones which had taken place after the disparate application of the reform in the 1990s. However, the lack of a homogeneous structure across the country thwarts the convergence of curricular policies.

On the other hand, Title VI of the law contains curricular definitions which include common mandatory contents for the all the jurisdictions’ curricular designs⁹. In addition to this there was the elaboration, as from 2004, of a series of contents called Basic Learning Fundamentals (NAPs) [Núcleos de Aprendizaje Prioritario] approved by the Federal Education Board. The purpose of these NAPs is to guarantee basic federal curricular guidelines and to set criteria to validate degrees. Provincial jurisdictions have autonomy to organise the curricular design and may adjust the NAPs to the reality of their schooling systems and jurisdictional rules. After the law was passed in 2006, the provincial governments introduced reforms to implement the federal legislation in their territories. The following table lists the legal framework applicable to provincial systems.

As shown above, the situation in the provinces varies since in some of them the applicable laws were passed before the 2006 reform, while in others the laws were enacted after the National Education Law, and a few others have no education legislation in place —which caused them to implement changes without any prior parliamentary debate. In the latter cases, there was a strengthening of the authority of provincial executive powers, to allow them to implement the educational reforms. Also, the different rules that were passed by the provinces to opt for the duration options of the primary and secondary levels (Table I) must be taken into consideration, as well as those which adapted the curricular guidelines to the different compulsory schooling levels. In sum, it may be stated that the different durations at primary and secondary levels, as well as the mixed degrees of acceptance of the NAPs by provincial governments and the diverse curricular designs approved by them have restrained educational equality in the context of a federal State.

Subnational Results in Education Coverage

A brief description of the jurisdictions based on socio-demographic data reveals the diversity of the country’s socio-educational contexts¹⁰. This general depiction enables an interpretation of the scopes and limitations that provincial States have to provide education services and instrument educational reforms.

Table III reveals the disparities among subnational States, with a high urbanisation rate in the country but a disproportionate natural growth rate (25% in Tierra del Fuego as opposed to 4.1% in the City of Buenos Aires, for example). From this data, it follows that although Argentine education coverage is high —on average— during compulsory schooling years, its distribution is clearly imbalanced among provincial jurisdictions¹¹. Different factors also contribute to this, including the role of provincial States, the provinces’ capacity to instrument sector policies which guarantee schooling, and the different academic structures in terms of duration of primary and secondary school. As noted in the information in the Appendix, these inequalities stand out even more within each educational region¹².

As mentioned above, 12 provinces have a 6-year duration for primary education and a 6-year duration for secondary education, while other 12 provinces have a duration of 7 and 5 years respectively for the same levels. These different durations condition the development of school contents in view of the specific purposes of primary and secondary levels of compulsory education. While the former is oriented to basic childhood learning, i.e. basic education on which any subsequent knowledge is to be built, secondary education purposes concern propaedeutic education, i.e. training for employment and the exercise of citizenship. A one-year difference at each of these levels affects the integration of educational purposes pursued as a whole. Moreover, it affects the promotion rate from primary to secondary school, given the fact that in the transition from the final year of one level and the first of the second one there are higher dropout or learning lag rates (for various reasons encompassing academic systems; school changes to continue secondary education; social and emotional relationships experimented during adolescence, which may affect students’ performance in different ways). All these factors relate to the degree of coordination between primary and secondary levels in each jurisdiction. Such coordination is influenced in turn by the variety of school offers, the provision of education services by the public and private sectors, the urbanisation level and the geographic contexts, all of which have a bearing on the commencement of secondary education once primary school is completed. A shorter duration of primary education indeed anticipate these experiences for students (in provinces with a 6-year span for such level) since they complete it at the age of 11, whilst at the same time it favours educational inequality within the schooling system as a whole.

If the data from Appendix Tables I and II were to be included in the analysis, it would be possible to determine the disproportionate coverage in compulsory education more accurately. Federalism certainly purports to acknowledge starting points, cultural contrasts and policies which are different from the institutional organisation of the member States. The problem at this point is that the States have unequal capacities, a fact that translates into multiple flaws in terms of compulsory schooling. That becomes evident when considering the substantive role of provincial governments in some jurisdictions to guarantee the provision of education services for the compulsory levels¹³.

Interregional and interprovincial inequalities are important, particularly in terms of primary education¹⁴. Except for the Central region, the percentage of public education in the country is close to 80% or higher. For instance, in the Northwestern region (NOA), coverage of primary education from the public sector is higher than 80% in the six provinces, while in four of them it exceeds 85% (La Rioja, Jujuy, Salta and Santiago del Estero). Except for Tucumán, where private education represents about 20% of the three compulsory educational levels, and Catamarca and Jujuy, which also have a high participation of this sector in early education, in the rest of the jurisdictions private education is not an option for the majority of the population. The situation in the Northwestern region (NEA) is very similar to that of the NOA in terms of education coverage by sectors. Without considering Misiones, almost 90% or more of the students in the rest of the provinces attend public primary education facilities. Again, except for Misiones at early and secondary education levels — where private education represents over 20%— in the rest of the jurisdictions and schooling levels, private education accounts for about 15%. The case of Formosa is noteworthy, as public education serves 90% of all primary and secondary school students. Lastly, the Southern region also presents similar data to that of the NOA and NEA regions since not only primary but also early and secondary education represent 80% of public education coverage (only decreasing by 74% in Tierra del Fuego). Private education just accounts for 20% at the early education level of three provinces: La Pampa, Río Negro, and Tierra del Fuego. In fact, although the latter has the highest values for this level, public education coverage is still predominant.

The values in the Cuyo and Central regions differ from the above in specific ways. The values in Cuyo provinces are not similar among one another. San Luis, for instance, has extensive public education coverage at the three compulsory education levels with over 82% coverage in each of them. San Juan, for its part, has almost identical values (77%) of public coverage for the three levels. Moreover, it is the province with the most developed private education system for compulsory education in general. Lastly, Mendoza has the most diverse learning levels as well as the highest value for private education sectors (36% for early education). The Central region, on the other hand, is very different from the other jurisdictions since their public education coverage does not reach 80% at any of the compulsory learning levels and, moreover, private education has a much higher representation, with over 25% at all levels. The City of Buenos Aires stands out with almost the same coverage on the part of public and private sectors, while the province of Buenos Aires shows high coverage levels by the private sector (around 35%).

Finally, upon consideration of the effects of these reforms in the federal context based on the evolution of primary level coverage from year 2005, it is clear that the variety of results obtained are inconsistent with educational equality and equal exercise of the right to education¹⁵. In the Appendix, there is data on the evolution of primary education coverage between 2005 and 2020 (Appendix Table III), broken down into public (Table IV) and private (Table V) education¹⁶. Overall, primary level coverage experienced a 5% growth between 2005 and 2019, but such increase has not been steady and it evidenced various inequalities among the provinces. During the first five years, school roll remained almost the same (1% between 2005 and 2010), whereas between 2005 and 2015 it decreased (-1%), which goes against the purposes of the 2006 reform policy. During the second decade of the century, coverage increased (4%) but maintained the inequalities across jurisdictions. Provinces such as Catamarca, Corrientes, Entre Ríos, Formosa, and La Pampa have shown a reduction in their primary school roll for all the periods analysed in Appendix Table III. Some others like Chaco, Jujuy and La Rioja had a smaller number of students in two periods (2005-2010 and 2015-2015), and then again in the total period analysed (2005-2019); while others revealed an overall reduction between 2005-2019 (Santiago del Estero and Tucumán), with fluctuations in some periods either because of coverage stagnation (Tucumán) or increase (Santiago del Estero). The provinces with the highest growth were Santa Cruz (37%) and Buenos Aires (27% on average between Greater Buenos Aires and the rest of the province), followed by Tierra del Fuego (18%), Neuquén (17%) and Mendoza (16%).

The analysis among sectors accounts for an increase in private education coverage (28%) and a contraction of the public sector (-1%) between 2005 and 2019. Table IV shows that the public sector increases in the periods 2010-2019 (2%) and 2015-2019 (7%), while it decreases between 2005 and 2010 (-3%), and above all between 2005 and 2015 (-8%). The evolution is disproportionate in the provinces: it falls abruptly in the period 2005-2015 in Catamarca (-28%), Entre Ríos (-16%), Formosa (-24%), and Corrientes (-20%); and decreases in all periods under study, though in smaller percentages, in Córdoba (-7%), La Pampa (-8%), and Santiago del Estero (-6%). Education coverage also declined throughout the entire period, although not systematically, in Chaco, Jujuy, La Rioja, Misiones, San Luis, and Tucumán (in the latter, however, the decrease was consistent, with only one stagnation period between 2005 and 2010). Once again, it is in Santa Cruz where there was a considerable increase in coverage (34%), followed by the City of Buenos Aires (15%), Mendoza (11%), Neuquén, and Tierra del Fuego (10% in both provinces). As for private education —as noted above—school roll increased during all the periods under analysis (Table V): overall, 28% (2005- 2019), more remarkably in the 2005-2015 decade (22%). The provinces in which private education roll increased the most throughout the entire period were Neuquén (90%), Chaco (79%), Tierra del Fuego (65%), Santiago del Estero (64%), Chubut (51%), and Mendoza (50%). In addition, and with percentages higher than 40%, the City of Buenos Aires (43%), Catamarca (46%) and La Rioja (48%), as well as Jujuy (39%) and San Juan (38%), with values around 40%.

Conclusions

In sum, in the analysis of existing educational inequalities in subnational States, the different results that federal reforms have had in terms of coverage become evident, and this affects the principle of equality, which is the basis of the right to education. In addition to this, the different curricular adaptations of the NAPs on the part of the provinces should be taken into consideration. It is worth questioning whether these indicators are actually pondered in the design of public policies for the sector. As stated above, federalism is respectful of the social and cultural diversity of member States, and asymmetries are an inherent feature of any federal State. However, international law notes that this should not affect the recognition and exercise of the rights of the population of a federal State. The American Convention on Human Rights, for instance, establishes that federalism may not be used by federal States as an excuse for failing to observe such rights within their territories (Article 28).

The Constitution and Law No. 26206 are the federal basis on which provincial legislations must enact their specific regulations. They constitute a non-negotiable legal framework, and the Argentine government is compelled to guarantee its compliance by virtue of the international treaties on human rights it has endorsed. However, the analysed results reveal that the application of reform policies has intensified the Argentine historical trend to diversify the system in a disjointed manner. Furthermore, access to the right to education has become increasingly inequitable.

The absence of a federal State with a role that seeks to promote this right has resulted in the marked differentiation of provincial jurisdictions. In particular, unequal coverage at primary education level, its contraction in the public education sector, and the advance of private education hinder the purposes embodied in the National Education Law. A greater regulatory recognition of the right to education has clearly not resulted in greater observance of such right in real terms in the subnational dimension. There is still much to be done with respect to internal public policies. The measures established in the legislation in force should be actually implemented (longer school days, continuous teacher training, improvement of the teacher-student relationship). This would enable to honour, rather effectively, some of the government’s pending commitments concerning the exercise of the right to education through actions aiming at guaranteeing attainable and equal schooling levels.

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Contact Address: Guillermo Ramón Ruiz. University of Buenos Aires, School of Law, Teaching Education Department. Figueroa Alcorta Avenue 2263, Buenos Aires, C1425CKB, Argentina, e-mail: gruiz@derecho.uba.ar

Appendix: School coverage according to compulsory levels and sectors

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¹ The historical Constitution of 1853-1860 was approved by 14 of the 24 current subnational States.

² The principle of equality constitutes one of the most relevant concepts of legal philosophy to analyse human rights. In their work, Montes and Parcerisa (2016) revise the theories of justice applied to the educational field.

³ The issue of how to measure the exercise of the right to education led to the creation of indicators both related to the State’s obligations and the schools’ internal performance. In this regard, see Ruiz (2020), Razquin (2020), and Tomaševski (2004).

⁴ The transfers from the national education institutions have always been proposed by the central government as an administrative matter based on financial measures to adjust the sector’s expenditure.

⁵ The Federal Education Board (or Consejo Federal de Educación) is a coordination body that was created in 1972. It is made up by federal and provincial educational authorities as well as three members of the Board of Universities (Consejo de Universidades).

⁶ Several studies analyse the educational inequality deriving from the reforms due to the different capacities of the provinces. These include, among others, Krüger et al. (2022), Riquelme et al. (2021), and Rivas (2004).

⁷ The National Education Law (of 2006) regulates the exercise of the right to education (Section 1).

⁸ These terms were coined in the Federal Education Law (in effect between 1993 and 2006). This law amended the system structure as it created two levels known as Basic General Education (EGB) and Polymodal Education. However, the third tier of EGB was organized and applied differently in each province, affecting the characteristics of Polymodal Education.

⁹ Titles VII, VIII and IX also contain curricular definitions.

¹⁰ This work does not particularly analyse the socioeconomic development of the different Argentine provinces and its effects on schooling since that exceeds the scope outlined herein. On this matter, there are numerous investigations (Álvarez, 2022; Krüger, 2016). These papers constitute only a fragment of the publications on the subject, enabling to approach it but in no way exhaust it.

¹¹ The table shows information on the coverage of primary and secondary education in the public sector. The importance of the City of Buenos Aires in the national average is evident. Appendix Tables I and II include data from the other levels.

With regard to this, Wiñar and Lemos (2005) and Arrigazzi Jallade (2022) have rigorous analyses of the unequal expansion that took place in the past decades.

¹² There are five regions: Central (four provinces and one autonomous city), Cuyo (three provinces), Northeast (four provinces), Northwest (six provinces), and South (six provinces).

¹³ This matter is associated with the privatisation of education, which takes place in various forms and to different extents (Verger et al., 2023). That is evidenced by the existence of numerous private education options in the context of a federal State. For an analysis of the Argentine case, see: Correa et al. (2021); Morduchowicz and Iglesias (2011); Vior and Rodríguez (2012).

¹⁴ Due to space reasons and the information available, from now on this paper will focus on primary education only (see footnote 16). The Appendix includes data of 2019 from every schooling level.

¹⁵ Year 2005 is taken into consideration to characterise coverage in the initial context of the educational reform process, while year 2019 is used as reference year before the school closures that took place due to the 2020 pandemic.

¹⁶ It should be noted that, due to changes in levels and durations of compulsory schooling, and the publications of the Argentine Ministry of Education, these tables only consider 6 years of primary education, even though 12 jurisdictions have implemented a 7- year duration for this school level. Moreover, in 2005 the system in force was EGB, which solely computed the first two cycles (6 years) despite its mixed application and the fact that not all the provincial States had imposed such level. Also, it is worth mentioning that these differences in the survey conducted by the Ministry render it impossible to calculate the evolution of secondary level coverage (such was its name since December 2006), as the different official statistical yearbooks have published data with dissimilar criteria.

Lastly, to calculate the interannual evolution of coverage, no comparison was made with data from 2020 because the closure of schools distorts the coverage indicator values.