The latest national and international assessments of secondary education in Argentina have highlighted three serious and basic deficiencies in our students: they have problems reading, writing, and solving mathematical problems.

In 1999, Guillermo Jaim Etcheverry , then rector of the University of Buenos Aires , published a controversial and devastating book entitled The Educational Tragedy , one of whose main theses is the same as that illustrated by these painful facts: that no learning takes place in our current school system.

However, we would be missing the point if we thought that the educational tragedy is limited to the educational sphere. Unfortunately, this structural deficit that we carry has profound consequences for civic life.

The fact that over 40% of our teenagers struggle with reading doesn't mean they're incapable of stringing words together or pronouncing them. It means they're unable to understand texts, develop abstract thinking skills, identify the main ideas, distinguish between secondary and main points, uncover fallacies, or connect different texts and authors. The staggering severity of not knowing how to read is that, ultimately, it means not knowing how to think.

Something similar happens to the more than 40% who have difficulties with writing. This isn't simply a matter of poor handwriting or a lack of knowledge of grammar, spelling, and syntax, although that may very well be the case. It means they don't know how to express what they feel and think, how to engage in dialogue, argue, reach agreements, or even disagreements when necessary—all crucial aspects of their lives as free citizens. Ultimately, not knowing how to write means not being able to understand themselves and the world they live in.

Finally, secondary school students demonstrate serious deficiencies when it comes to solving mathematical problems. We may naively think, or they may think, that this knowledge is completely unnecessary in a world where computers solve these kinds of problems, forgetting that

What computers are incapable of defining is, on the one hand, which specific problems they should solve mathematically, and on the other hand, which problems of all that exist can be solved in that way and not in another; that is, they lack the foundations of logical thinking , the only one that protects us against the manipulation of 'fake news' or the totalitarianism of some ideologies.

Without thinking, without being able to express ourselves, and without logical thought, we are completely defenseless against the manipulation of consciences and hearts characteristic of magical thinking from which all forms are essentially made populism And throughout the world, regardless of their political leanings: messianic movements that propose simplistic, quick, and harmless solutions to complex problems.
That defenseless 40% are part of the Argentine citizens of the future; they already are in the present. an educational tragedy with civic implications In whose diagnosis 23 years ago the brilliant and always lucid Jaim Etcheverry seems to have sadly fallen short.