The fight for inclusive education continues to be driven by students, current scholarship recipients, and former recipients of the National Scholarship Program (PRONABEC), who are now holding a permanent vigil in front of the Ministry of Education, located in the San Borja district of Lima.
“We won’t give up; we’ll remain here while, at the same time, we continue our dialogue with the president-elect,” they said.
Bryan Melgar, representative of the National Front of Scholarship Recipients of Peru (FRENABEP), spoke to Pressenza during the vigil that dozens of students, scholarship recipients, and former scholarship recipients of PRONABEC have decided to maintain, demanding that this government (or the incoming one) shelve the draft amendment to the Regulations of Law No. 29837, which undermines access to education for talented but economically vulnerable young people.
“This government has decided to ignore our request, our demand. It issued a ministerial resolution extending the public consultation period by another 30 days; in a way, this is an achievement, but it is also a way to wash its hands of the matter and leave the problem to the next government. What we are seeking is for this government to take responsibility and, effective immediately, shelve this ministerial resolution and render it null and void,” Melgar stated amid the students holding the vigil.
The FRENABEP representative also reported that although the public consultation period was extended to 30 days, it has not been adequately publicized: “They only posted it on their official website; they didn’t even post it on social media or other outlets that are more accessible to scholarship recipients,” thereby limiting public participation by those affected by the amendment.
Purge of Scholarship Recipients
Currently, PRONABEC serves 60,000 undergraduate scholarship recipients and 283 graduate students. The changes the Peruvian government intends to make to the educational scholarship program are viewed by students as a “distortion of the program’s original purpose.” Under the new regulations, scholarship recipients would not be able to express themselves freely—as they would risk losing their scholarships. Nor would they be able to repeat courses or change their major, and their psychological and emotional support would be withdrawn.
“The system they’re running is too strict and doesn’t take into account the reality of young people and scholarship recipients. So that’s what we’re talking about. There’s something they’re carrying out internally—we could call it a ‘scholarship recipient purge.’ To them, we’re just an expense. Since December, with the Beca 18 program, they’ve practically cut them off, because without money, there are no scholarships. Whose fault is it? We never found out. But of the 38,000 scholarships promised, they never actually existed.
From there, they even began a process of restructuring—the so-called “reengineering” of the National Scholarship Program. We could say that this is an entire process, a full-scale initiative to undermine the current scholarship system and transform it into something else. It seems the education sector isn’t interested. They’ve already been cutting budgets—by billions—for quite some time. That’s why all public and private universities and high schools nationwide are suffering.
What they’re doing is simply cutting dreams short and stifling the country’s education. By overhauling the entire law governing the National Scholarship Program, they’re changing undergraduate and graduate programs, student loans, and the entire range of scholarships that exist. They’re changing everything as they please, without any real consultation, without coordination with young people or scholarship recipients,” denounced Bryan Melgar.
Support from Students and the Public
Protesters gathered in front of the Ministry of Education say they will continue their round-the-clock vigil until they receive a response from the current government or the incoming one, starting on July 28.
The scholarship recipients’ demands have received support from the university federations of Lima and Callao, as well as from the Catholic University and Cayetano Heredia University. Additionally, at universities without federations, they have received support from student groups at institutions such as the Universidad Científica, UPC, Ruiz de Montoya University, and others nationwide.
