So many situations happen in Argentina, and so many cuts and adjustments occur at the same time, that many go unnoticed. One is that of technical schools, established in the 2026 budget by the national government and endorsed by La Libertad Avanza and allied governors. But the topic was not closed: Families of students presented a collective action requesting protection to stop this defunding, which has just been accepted by Justice.
He Federal Administrative Contentious Court No. 12 resolved to proceed as a collective action to the protection presented by families of students from public technical schools against article 30 of the 2026 Budget.
It is about the first collective protection which questions the cut in financing of technical-professional education at the national level and which was promoted by Agustin Letcher, Tamara Bezares, Pablo González, Gabriel Ponce, Adrian Ojeda, Gerardo Marchesini and Rodolfo Zarate.
The defunding of technical schools
In this first decision, The Justice recognized that there is a common and homogeneous impact on the group of students of state technical-professional education and, therefore, he ordered that the case be processed as collective protection, with effects on the entire class involved.
The lawsuit challenges the modifications introduced by the Budget, which eliminated key financing mechanisms of the educational system, among them the National Fund for Professional Technical Education and the investment floors in education and science and technology.
Along with the demand requested a precautionary measure to suspend the effects of article 30 of the 2026 Budget while the underlying issue is resolvedin order to prevent definancing from continuing to immediately deteriorate the course conditions, equipment, infrastructure, supplies and professionalizing practices of public technical schools.
The families stressed that the resolution is a key step, because it recognizes that these are not isolated cases, but rather a structural impact on the right to technical-professional education, in a context of setback on legal guarantees of financing previously in force.
«What the court decided now was to admit the processing of the case as collective protection, recognize that there is a common impact on the group of students from state technical schools and delimit the scope of the class involved. From here on, the file continues its processing and the decision on the urgent protection that we request to suspend the effects of article 30 will be pending while the merits are discussed.“he highlighted Time Tamara Bezares, lawyer for the case.
He commented that there is no exact deadline that can be anticipated: «The precautionary measure has not yet been granted nor rejected; It is a pending decision. This first resolution ordered the collective processing of the protection and now we hope that the court will rule on the urgent guardianship requested since last January.
«Taking technical schools into the abyss»
The complaints have been happening since the beginning of the year. In January, after the judicial presentation of a group of parents of students of technical schools To restore the validity of the regulations repealed in the 2026 Budget regarding technical education, the members of the bloc of the Left Front They presented a bill along those lines.
With the signatures of Romina del Pla, Miriam Bregman, Nestor Pitrola and Nicolás del Cañothe initiative maintains that the repeal of article 52 of Law 26,058, “eliminates the main financing fund of the INET (National Institute of Technical Education).”
Among the foundations of the project, they reiterated that the repeal of these articles – which lost validity with the approval of Chapter II of the 2026 Budget Law – “the situation of defunding will deepen, leading technical education to the abyss, with different specialists calculating that the 2026 budget will result in a cut of 84.5% of INET resources.”
“There are many articles that propose taking a ‘chainsaw’ to education, science, health, salaries, the environment and many other points that contain popular demands. Meanwhile, many other articles benefit large businessmen, and enable the government to continue and deepen a policy of indebtedness and colony delivery.l”, they questioned the foundations of the bill in reference to the 2026 budget.
Article 30 of the Law repeals the mandatory financing floor and eliminates the fairness in the distribution of resources that guaranteed Law 26,058 on Professional Technical Education.
In dialogue with Time, Gerardo Marchesini, teacher of technical-professional education, explained that the elimination of the Technical-Professional Education Fund will affect 1,900,000 students in Argentina, especially at secondary technical levels and in vocational training: “Without technical-professional training there is no job qualification. The specialties cover many areas, since it is a dynamic education that incorporates new trends within the field of service production: programming, artificial intelligence, development of embedded systems, to name a few, biotechnology, renewable energies, which are added to the more traditional training, such as construction, energy, mechanics and automotive.
“Article 30 of the budget law is a direct shot at the possibility of a developing country because it not only affects technical-professional education, it also affects the general public education system, the development of science and technology and the development of national sovereignty,” he warned.
The regulations eliminated this year established that the State must invest 0.2% of current income in the fund for technical education, which today would be equivalent to about 322 billion pesos. However, the government arbitrarily decided to grant only 11 billion pesos.
