Broadcast by the Government of El Salvador. All channels and stations must link to the national radio and television network.
Next, the inauguration of 70 schools, led by His Excellency the President of the Republic, Nayib Bukele.
Broadcast by the Government of El Salvador. All channels and stations must link to the national radio and television network.
Next, the inauguration of 70 schools, led by His Excellency the President of the Republic, Nayib Bukele.
Broadcast by the Government of El Salvador. All channels and stations must link to the national radio and television network.
Next, the inauguration of 70 schools, led by His Excellency the President of the Republic, Nayib Bukele.
Broadcast by the Government of El Salvador. All channels and stations must link to the national radio and television network.
Next, the inauguration of 70 schools, led by His Excellency the President of the Republic, Nayib Bukele.
We ask you to please stand to witness the entrance of His Excellency the President of the Republic of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, accompanied by the President-elect of the Republic of Chile, José Antonio Kast.
Alright, you may be seated, please. At this moment, we will hear the message from the President of the Republic of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele.
Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you, thank you, thank you. It had to be a school. Good afternoon. Well, it's a pleasure to be here with you. I bring with me the President-elect, meaning the new President of the Republic of Chile.
As you all know, Chile is 30 years ahead of us in education, right? But we will catch up someday by doing this kind of thing. God willing. It's still a long way, but we are going to fight to achieve it.
Mr. President-elect, welcome again. To the entourage that accompanies you, which is your future cabinet. Once we add the members of our cabinet who are here with us, and the members of the Municipal Works Directorate (DOM) who built this school, which turned out very beautiful, as well as all the others they make.
Dear students, parents, directors, and teachers of the different schools we are inaugurating today. Dear Salvadoran people, ladies and gentlemen, as you all know, we have a program called 'Two Schools a Day,' where every day we start two schools.
Before starting the 'Two Schools a Day' program, we had already remodeled many schools, hundreds of schools, but very few. And since the goal is to remodel all the schools in the country, we started the 'Two Schools a Day' program, which is basically what it's called: every day two new schools are started. Yesterday two schools were started, today two schools were started, tomorrow two schools will be started, the day after tomorrow two schools will be started, and so on until we finish all the schools in our country.
But from this 'Two Schools a Day' program, we already have 500, well, 504 that are already under construction, and tomorrow there will be 506, the day after tomorrow 508. But one thing is to start the school and have it under construction, and another thing is to finish the school. So last time we inaugurated 70 schools in a single day, and today we come to inaugurate another 70 schools.
And well, as you know, 'Two Schools a Day' is not just painting or putting in some new furniture, but 'Two Schools a Day' is comprehensive. It's complete schools: new classrooms, roofs, bathrooms, kitchens, recreational areas, lighting, ventilation, safe conditions to study and to teach, etc. It's about having dignified schools. True centers of study.
As you know, the type of schools our country had was sad. It was rare to find a school that was more or less okay. Most schools were in conditions, and many we haven't reached yet, are in sad, deplorable conditions, basically falling down or made of tin. Last time we showed some schools made of bamboo, others made of plastic bags, with tin, wattle-and-daub, mud, or cement, but they were built in 1950 and they forgot to maintain them for the last 70 years, and they are basically a ruin where children attend class.
Fixing them is not easy, but it must be done, and it will take us a while because we don't have a magic wand to fix them all at once, but we are moving fast and we are doing well.
There is something important that few people, well, many know it, some don't, which is that while there is always an institution in charge of the direction and the majority of the work, many of the schools are being built or at least helped to be built by inmates from our penitentiary system.
So, in the 'Zero Idleness' program, we have many inmates who deserve a second chance. We are not talking about murderers or people who committed minor crimes, but those who deserve a second chance. They are working in many areas, and one of the areas they are working in is helping with the construction of schools, and another is in the construction of desks, furniture, and games for children. And in some way, some of them are building the desks for their own children, and that means a lot.
The country we are coming from and what we are building is diametrically opposite. And one of the results, these interventions are not cosmetic, as you can see it is real and it will directly impact the quality of education. But it doesn't just impact there, it is also impacting enrollment. Enrollment is rising, and note that enrollment is rising while the birth rate is falling, meaning proportionally it is rising even more.
For example, there is a school, the Cantón El Guaje school center, which has registered a 70% increase in enrollment. That is the highest, there are others with 9%, 11%, 12%, but the Cantón El Guaje school center has registered a 70% increase in enrollment.
Just imagine a 70% increase in a canton where the population isn't going to double. If enrollment rose 70%, it's because very important things are happening there. One is the infrastructure, obviously. Another is security, because obviously the children can go to study calmly, parents can be calm that their children are going to school and that two things won't happen.
Gang members won't do anything to them because they are in prison, and they won't become gang members because no one will recruit them, but rather they will become good men and women.
And then we also have the delivery of the new school supply packages. I think many of you have already seen them. They are beautiful, complete packages, delivered on time, and they are the type of supplies that if someone had money, they would buy the same thing.
It includes two uniforms, a pair of shoes. For the younger grades, it includes a tablet; for the older grades, a computer. The books, notebooks, pencils, colors, and all the things. And the important thing is that it will be delivered on time, meaning when classes start, they will receive their school supply packages. Unlike before, which wasn't like that, and they weren't even complete, even in our government, and many times they were delivered in July, August.
I think many of you know and won't let me lie that sometimes the uniform, we were even delivering it in October. So they would say, 'Why should I put it on for just one month?' And not to mention the wrong sizes and all the logistical errors, errors from previous governments that didn't do anything.
But we decided, we are going to fix this. And with the new minister, we created a logistics program where everything is measured, tabulated: the quality, the times, the sizes, and everything so that it is done well.
There is an issue that came up where the opposition started complaining that before things weren't delivered on time, and now that they are going to be delivered on time and well and of very high quality, they say, 'Ah, but you didn't take into account the national producers.' Because of course, to be able to deliver on time, we had to bring planes full of things for the children.
And then they told me, 'Mr. President, but we have all these national producers who are also Salvadorans and live off production for schools.' I told them, 'Well, look, we have to help everyone, but let's go by priorities. The priority of this program is not to give contracts to production people. The priority of this program is to deliver the school supply packages to the children. That is priority number one, and we are going to fulfill that priority first.'
What do we need to deliver the school supply packages on time, with quality, standardized, without errors, well-made, without a button missing from the shirt, without the shoe being two sizes too big, without part of the package being delivered one month and part in 4 months, without errors, and delivered well and on time and with quality? Well, we need to hire large suppliers who can supply us, and that was done.
And some national suppliers and some foreign suppliers were hired to fulfill the first priority: delivering on time, with quality, well, and complete. And then came the second priority, which was to help national producers, especially small ones, so their businesses wouldn't collapse.
So we called them all and told them, 'Look, gentlemen, we have to deliver at the start of classes. What can you deliver at the start of classes and what can you deliver later?' And they were honest, they said, 'Well, we can deliver all this before classes start, and all this we can bring later, in June, July, October.' So we told them, look, we are going to do something so that everyone wins. We are going to buy everything you can produce in the times you can deliver, but the children are not going to wait for you. So we are going to cover those times with imports, we are going to bring what is needed to deliver completely, and then what you deliver later, well, another uniform is given or the packages for next year are complemented.
In short, what we want is not to take a single dollar away from any national producer. But we were also not going to allow the children to be at the mercy of when they want to deliver, the quality they want to deliver. If the shirt comes without buttons, too bad, take it like that, hold it. So now we are going to do this, and then we are going to start organizing the national producers, helping them with their productive capacity, and in the end, the child is the priority. The national producer is also important, everyone will be helped, but never sacrificing the children, which is what has been done all these previous years.
Well, with this, we are going to have good schools. Little by little, right? We are building them. Just this time we inaugurated 70. Good supplies, uniforms, shoes, computers.
We are developing with Elon Musk AI tutors so that every child in El Salvador has an individualized tutor for all subjects. Elon Musk himself announced that. Did any of you see it? Yes, more or less. Well, we announced it on all networks.
And discipline rules, which are important and are being implemented.
And now something that also fills us with pride: my wife Gabriela, the First Lady, launched the new educational curriculum for early childhood. And this is work by her and her office, the people who work with her, and many people from MINED who have been working since 2019 trying to create a complete, comprehensive program, and it is very beautiful.
I saw it, I don't know, I don't have the experience she has in these topics. She is a professional and this is what she knows how to do. I'm not going to try to explain it better than her, but it is a program designed to take advantage of the years where children learn the most, because the brain has neuroplasticity, meaning like a tree. You see a tree, when the tree is green it can be straightened well. When the tree is already big, unfortunately, it's harder for us to change or improve. We can learn something new, but it costs us. A child, right? And the younger they are, the easier it is for them to learn.
So, the first years of life are the most important years, and that is what my wife and the First Lady's office team have been working on to generate a new way of teaching and therefore a new way of learning.
And this is not about giving the child a tablet and having them watch screens all day, no, this is dynamic, it has the playful part, the teacher training part, the affection they should receive, that they feel important, the children, that they feel taken into account. We are not going to let children make all the decisions, but we are going to take them into account in the decision, that they feel they are part of the decisions being made, that they feel respected, that they feel like what they are, which are the protagonists of this, because all this we are doing is not for you, the parents, we are doing it for your children.
And so, from the First Lady's office, they want to promote this approach to early childhood care. Remember that the curriculum is not just a paper or a document that we are simply going to make this new one, but it represents everything: the areas, the attention, the study materials, the games, learning by playing, putting the child at the center as it should be, and recognizing the teacher as well, who is ultimately the one who guides, who accompanies, who builds real learning experiences.
I see many times, and I have seen this since I was mayor, I was mayor of Nuevo Cuscatlán, a small town of 10 square kilometers, and I was always put as the godfather of the graduation so they would pay for it. And so they put me as godfather, I was always the godfather, and there I would arrive, we would do the graduation at the schools, and I always saw that the children, upon graduating, would always hug their teachers crying because they weren't going to see them anymore, 'Miss, we won't see you anymore,' and crying.
So I said, I am sure we have serious problems in education. That was 12 or 13 years ago, I said, I am sure we have very serious problems in education. But there is affection between the teacher and their students. There is affection, the majority, the vast majority, there are exceptions, right? But in the vast majority there is affection, and on that, you can build. There is a good foundation.
So, what was missing was a curriculum, the tools, the infrastructure, the laboratory, the playful part, the programs, the supplies, but the affection was there. And so we build on that, and my wife Gabriela and her team built on the affection, and I believe that will totally change education in El Salvador. And they are fruits that we will not see because, as they say, he who invests in education is like he who plants a tree. He plants it but he never enjoys the shade. Someone else comes to enjoy the shade of the tree. Why? Because he doesn't have to plant it. The same with education, what we are going to invest now, we will see in 20 years. We won't be here anymore.
Well, in the world yes, right? But not in the government. God willing. But the fruits will be seen. Someone has to plant them at some point.
We have also made an investment of more than 1 billion dollars in 1.2 million devices. We are going to add 420,000 more devices this year. We have, to ensure that no student is without a computer or a tablet, depending on the age: tablet for kindergarten, delivered from Kindergarten 4 up to pre-school; tablet from first grade to third grade; computer from fourth grade to ninth grade; and computer for high school.
And the idea is that everyone has a device and that they will have the tools that someone with money would buy for their child. But now all children in El Salvador have that same right, the tools to learn. Note, it's not about giving handouts; if the government is paying for it, obviously it comes from people's taxes, but it's not about giving handouts, it's about giving them the tools so that they strive and learn. And that is important that as parents we instill in our children.
It's not that they are giving you something, it's that they are giving you a tool so that you strive and get ahead. Just like parents with economic resources give their child the tools, but he has to strive, he has to study, he has to work, he has to get ahead.
It's not 'give me, give me,' it's 'they give me the opportunity to work and to be able to get ahead, and if I can even help my family get ahead, them too.' So, it is important to instill that in children. We are giving them everything they need, but they are the ones who have to strive, study, learn, and get ahead. And it is their parents who have to instill that in their children.
Well. Having said that, Mr. President, I don't know if you want to mention something. Sorry to put you on the spot.
No, no, no. If you authorize me, first I want to thank you, President, for receiving us, for opening the doors of your nation to us. For us, who are a distant country at the end of the world, a long and narrow country, it is very hopeful to see a nation that was immersed in a civil war, that was in a dispute against organized crime, move forward. And two words come to my mind while you were speaking, which are dignity and freedom.
Dignity for the teachers to have a place to receive their students. Dignity for the families, which is reflected in the increase in children's enrollment. Because when parents see a dignified place where their children can go to learn, where there are teachers who receive them and guide them, and that exchange of emotions is produced when the children leave. I lived that emotion with my nine children, a large family, and there was no more emotional ceremony than the graduation of each of my children, the youngest is already 18, when they hugged their teachers and cried.
And that filled me with pride because it was the student's respect for their teacher and the recognition of what the teacher had given them, which were the tools for them to get ahead. Dignity for the students who are coming, who will have a clean bathroom with running water, who will have orderly desks, dignity in the color of the school, which is white, which is hard to maintain. Generally, one looks for colors where the foot leaning on the wall doesn't show, and sometimes the white is from the foot up because the children lean their feet on the wall. But here they have a responsibility to the children, to take care of what is given to them as a tool, because this implies the effort of millions of people in El Salvador who pay their taxes and with that the government, the president can build a beautiful house with universal accessibility, which also caught my attention because it meets universal accessibility standards, where every child who may have a disability because they can't walk, because they can't see, will arrive to receive education.
And freedom, because education gives freedom. When you learn to add, to subtract, to read, to write, to understand what you read, you will have the freedom to choose. If you also learn a language over time, and the most known language is English, you will be able to travel the world and you will have opportunities because you will have a good foundation. And that freedom they obtain through the tools given to them, but it is the fruit of their responsibility.
So, dignity, freedom is something that today I see you are delivering throughout the nation. A nation that one sees and could come by air, says, 'This geography is very difficult to face because there are many mountainous areas to connect a country like yours, which is small, but I believe if we add up the surface area, it is double what it should be because of the amount of mountains.' You are giving from the State dignity, freedom, and it is also reflected in the smiles of the people who were on the route from where we arrived to here. There were people who were gathering and were happy because they knew this was going to be a contribution. So thank you very much for the opportunity. I am sure you will catch up quickly because you were saying, we are going to deliver the supplies at the right time. We just came out of a year where school supplies in a fairly developed country arrived in October.
And of course, we laughed with part of the cabinet because we saw this and said, 'They are going to arrive at the right times.' Well, we have good infrastructure, we have high artificial intelligence, but we were not able to arrive on time, and it is not just the responsibility of a government in office, it is a responsibility of all of us. Therefore, once again, thank you very much, President, for this opportunity.
Well, today we inaugurated the Centro Escolar Caserío Las Lajas, Cantón San Antonio Abad, the Gloria Borja Nathan Preschool, the Centro Escolar Cantón El Despoblado, the Centro Escolar Belén Vía Palestina, the Centro Escolar Colonia Monseñor Rodrigo Orlando Cabrera, the Centro Escolar Caserío del Rosario Cantón San José Las Flores, the Centro Escolar Cantón Dos Quebradas, the Centro Escolar Caserío Los Guirola, the Centro Escolar Caserío Las Cocinas, Cantón Cutumá y Camones, the Centro Escolar Cantón La Peñita, the Preschool Cantón El Limón, the Centro Escolar Comunidad de Santa María, the Centro Escolar Cantón El Refugio, the Preschool of Locuilta, Preschool Colonia 27 de Septiembre, Preschool of Aguilares, the Centro Escolar Mercedes Quintero, the Preschool of San Sebastián, the Preschool of Verapaz, the Centro Escolar Cantón Loma de Andalucía, Preschool of Cantón Santa Rosa, the National Institute of Nuevo Cuzcatlán, where I was mayor, hello, the Preschool of San José Villanueva, which is a municipality bordering Nuevo Cuzcatlán.
Centro Escolar Cantón Los Amates. Centro Escolar Caserío El Zapotal, Cantón Tecomatal. Centro Escolar Caserío del Mono in Cantón El Avillal. Centro Escolar Caserío El... they are creative with the names, right? It's not that easy. Centro Escolar Cantón Altomiro, Centro Escolar Caserío El Visadero, Cantón Achiotal, Centro Escolar Ingeniero Ramón Enrique Ventura Portillo, Centro Escolar Caserío Las Hojas, Cantón Las Delicias, Centro Escolar Caserío Cooperativa San Carlos 3, Cantón El La Villal, Escuela de Educación Especial de San Vicente, Preschool Colonia La Caridad, Centro Escolar Jardines de San Bartolo, Preschool Profesora María Escobar Granillo, Centro Escolar Leonardo Escúaga, Centro Escolar Cantón El Guaje, the one we mentioned that had a 70% increase in enrollment, Centro Escolar Comunidad Nueva Jerusalén, Preschool Sorela Panameño, Centro Escolar Caserío Monterrey, Cantón La Laguna, Centro Escolar Cantón Flora María Bajo, Centro Escolar José Mariano Méndez, Centro Escolar República de Turquía, Centro Escolar Antonio Morán de Lovato, Centro Escolar Colonia San Genaro, Preschool Juan de Dios Arco, Centro Escolar Cantón El Botoncillal, Centro Escolar Caserío del Jabalí, Cantón Galera Quemada, Preschool Sacacoyo, Preschool Popotlán, Preschool Profesora María Ema Castro de Chiquillo, Centro Escolar Cantón Santa Bárbara, Preschool Comunidad 7 de Septiembre, Preschool Gabriela Mistral, Preschool Colonia Monserrat, Centro Escolar Cantón Lomas de Candelaria, Centro Escolar Fernando Yort, Centro Escolar Residencial Regalo de Dios, Preschool de Santo Domingo, Preschool de Tepetitán, Preschool Hacienda Chánico, Centro Escolar Caserío Los Laureles in Cantón Zapotitán, Preschool San Rafael, Preschool Yolanda Ramírez de Díaz, Complejo Educativo Cristóbal Ibarra in Mexicanos, Complejo Educativo Caserío El Rodeo in Cantón San Matías, Centro Escolar del Cantón San Ramón in San Antonio del Monte, Centro Escolar Caserío Santo Tomás in San Luis Talpa, and Centro Escolar Colonia Santa Leonor.
And the minister is at the Preschool Yolanda Ramírez de Díaz. So well, these are the... they are greeting us there, and with that, these are the 70 schools we inaugurated today. Classes start Monday, so Monday we welcome you to these new schools.
And there are already 500 more under construction so that we can go on inaugurating 70 by 70 or 80 by 80, God willing, until we reach all the schools in the country and that all children have the right to study in a beautiful school.
Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you to the President of Chile for accompanying us here. Thank you very much to all of you, to the teaching staff, to the DOM, to all the people who worked hard for this school and for the other 69 schools we see over there. A greeting to all the children and may God bless you all.
Next, we will witness the ribbon-cutting by His Excellency the President of the Republic of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, accompanied by the President-elect of the Republic of Chile, José Antonio Kast, and of course, students from the Centro Escolar Cantón San Ramón in San Antonio del Monte, Sonsonate Centro.
Very well. And at this moment, His Excellency the President of the Republic of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, accompanied by the President of the Republic of Chile, José Antonio Kast, will tour the facilities of the Centro Escolar Cantón San Ramón in San Antonio del Monte, Sonsonate Centro.
Hello, good evening, Mr. President. Again. Good evening, Mr. President. The architect, congratulations. You are still there, right? I mean, your team, well, sorry, the DOM team, the team, but you are indeed there.
Yes. Welcome to the Centro Escolar Cantón San Ramón. The school center was built in an area of 4,300 square meters. This was under a cooperation agreement with the Inter-American Development Bank. We begin the tour.
Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. I'll be behind watching you.
Well, as you mentioned, the school center has universal accessibility. It had an investment of 4.6 million and more than 650 students will benefit. Currently, it is a large school for the size of El Salvador. There are larger schools, right? There are some with over 1,000, but most will have around 300. This school has from initial to ninth grade, it doesn't have high school.
There are 13 classroom modules, which include a multi-purpose room. Six.
Here the preschool isn't here either, right?
No, the preschool is this part.
Ah, yes, because last time we inaugurated both, right? We had the preschools. This one is smaller.
It also has the Zoom room, which is for meetings. It's a multi-purpose room. In this case, this school center also has a nurse's office area, administrative area, the court, which is where we were a moment ago, the flag of Chile, of El Salvador.
Yes, no, very, very grateful for the detail.
Let's go into the Zoom room. There is a Gabriela Mistral school.
Which is the Chilean poet who won the Nobel Prize, so we are going to have to send her a special library.
Thank you. Well, this is one of the multi-purpose rooms. As the president mentioned, these are part of the furniture that the inmates create, that the inmates manufacture for the institutes.
The inmates manufacture 100% of that.
It is quality furniture, and quality because it is sturdy.
It withstands the children's wiggling, right? It's good material. Well, the LED lighting, fans, because the area is a bit hot, wide windows to facilitate access to ventilation, the false ceiling, porcelain tile floors, the appropriate furniture, look, so that teachers can give... they are basic things, but that weren't there before. There were classrooms that didn't have a blackboard, or broken blackboards, or that didn't have fans, or that didn't have a door.
There is also, right? A fire extinguisher system, fans. Let's go to the nurse's office.
The nurse's office, my children always visited it, but the magic herb was chamomile. Because for...
How are you? Excellency, Mr. Presidents. Welcome to the nurse's office. In this area, all students will be attended to. They will receive first aid, vaccination campaigns, medical consultation campaigns, scheduled by the Ministry of Health. Likewise, the area is fully equipped, it is also complete with medications so that our children have immediate attention. It has its washing area. The light is adequate, one degree lower so as not to bother the patient more, and it will also be used for different vaccination campaigns.
Excellent. Is that vaccination campaign also for the general population or is there a health center nearby?
Ah, perfect. Health. Of course, the schools can be used.
I was telling the president that in my children's school, the nurse's office always had to have infusions because many children came not because they were sick, but because they were shy. And here there was a whole... the nurse is always the most applauded at my children's graduations. It was always the nurse, because whenever a child was shy or something, they would ask to go to the nurse's office. 'My stomach hurts, my head hurts,' and a good conversation, a good dialogue solved all the problems.
Well, it's 50% of... thank you very much. That it goes very well. Thank you. 50% of illnesses are in the head.
Yes. So, a good reception. We in Chile are working a lot on the inclusion of children with attention deficit, with ADHD, autism, which are stages that one goes through little by little.
Of course. Let's go into the preschool area. In all school centers, the preschool areas are separated due to age differences.
Absolutely. Well, this area was designed based on the new early childhood curriculum, which goes hand in hand with the First Lady, so that the children can have a meaningful...
Sorry for the interruption, those furniture are also made by inmates.
Yes, the furniture has been custom-made to be accessible to all children, so they are neither too big nor too small. They have all the didactic material, they are already part of the curriculum books.
Yes, they arrived on time.
They arrived on time. And all those books they made from scratch. They created the characters.
Yes, in fact, they have created characters that the children are already getting familiar with. There are some less famous, others more famous. There is a television program with the characters.
Yes. 'The House of Lula' it's called, created also by the First Lady's office. So, the idea is like, I don't know, it's comprehensive, right?
We also have the water fountains, also at different heights for the reach of all children. They have their filter and they also have a button. I'm going to take the opportunity to show an example. They have a sensor so that children can put their bottle there and it fills automatically. And here at the bottom are the filters placed so that the water is purified and they can drink it.
Yes, because tap water can be drunk, but it has levels, right? This is 100% filtered.
Well, this is the classroom enabled for preschool. It has a part that is like a storage room so that the children and the teaching staff can keep all the material.
It looks very tidy too because they haven't started yet with all the toys and didactic material.
They also have their own bathroom area, they also have a shower for any accident that happens with the little ones.
I have a daughter who is a preschool teacher.
Ah, yes. Yes. But she specialized in outdoor education, so they hardly use the classroom. It's all outdoors.
Yes, of course. Yes, but yes. Well, and this is part of the furniture like this. Here are some of the characters that...
Yes, there are several. Of course. Here... well, this is perhaps a normal family, but within it, it's already novel.
Yes, but this is... it's a good production, it has good...
No, here there is a family on the cover.
It's... ah... in Chile it would be a novelty, I mean, we would be in trouble. Here we don't have that problem. Here we all approve of this.
Of course, no. In Chile there is a heated discussion.
How good, what good material, what good quality.
