Editorial, El Dia:

Over the past two decades, education in Bolivia has not served as an instrument of social mobility, but rather as the spoils of an insatiable corporate entity: the unionized teaching profession. Under the pretext of “defending labor rights,” union leaders have transformed classrooms into an enclave of political and patronage-based power.

The enactment of the Avelino Siñani–Elizardo Pérez Law in 2010 did nothing more than institutionalize this breakdown, cementing union co-governance and handing control of the education system to a corporate structure that has never been interested in educational quality, but only in the relentless preservation of its privileges.

The evidence of this takeover is overwhelming. Law 070 sidelined scientific rigor, meritocracy, and international standards in favor of a narrative of sociocommunity indoctrination. Bolivian children and young people were cut off from universal knowledge and global competitiveness, reduced to mere recipients of an ideological doctrine designed to serve a political project.

While the rest of the world moved toward digitalization, critical thinking, and competency-based assessment, Bolivia turned teaching into an insular stronghold where absolute job security shielded mediocrity and thwarted any attempt to establish accountability.

Today, as the government attempts to modernize the system by decentralizing technical education and transferring responsibility to departmental governments, the teachers’ union is responding in the same old way: violence, strikes, and the dusting off of the familiar “privatization” argument.

Opposition to decentralization does not stem from fear of losing free education, but from fear of losing the spoils. The urban teachers’ union is fighting fiercely to preserve hierarchical union control and patronage-based power over teaching positions, hiring, and teacher training. Union leaders oppose allowing regional governments to manage their own development because doing so would mean breaking open the black box of union centralism, where positions are handed out as favors to those loyal to the leadership.

It is a tragic irony that a leadership group that calls itself the “representative of workers” marches shoulder to shoulder with political factions displaced from power and bureaucratic elites to block any reform that would involve measuring teaching quality.

Its systematic refusal to submit to transparent performance evaluations demonstrates that students are not at the center of its model; the union is. It has turned the teaching profession into an impregnable fiefdom where seniority matters more than merit and organizational loyalty outweighs academic excellence.

Bolivia will be unable to pursue development as long as its education system remains held hostage by this veritable union mafia. The teachers’ resistance to decentralization and the measurement of standards is not an act of professional dignity, but a desperate defense of an archaic structure that has condemned entire generations to fall behind.