Jorge Macri's Minister of Education defended the Guaraní language in the City after a controversy with libertarians
A phrase uttered by Jorge Macri on Monday during the opening of the 2025 school year generated a series of doubts and questions regarding the teaching of the Guaraní language in the city of Buenos Aires . For this reason, his Minister of Education, Mercedes Miguel , had to explain what the Buenos Aires governor meant when he made this allusion.
“Here we are in a school that teaches Chinese, which also starts teaching English this year. But I was with the president of Paraguay [Santiago Peña] the other day , because In many of our schools we have Guaraní . And he explained to me how important it is to be able to learn other languages , because languages are not just words, they define you a little in your understanding of other cultures, of expressing who you are. Beyond saying it and telling it, maintaining and caring for languages, and many of these languages that for many of these children have to do with the origin of their family, is tremendously important ,” said Macri, from the Argentine-Chinese Bilingual School in the Parque Patricios neighborhood.
After that, there was a flood of reactions, especially on social media, to the point that the word “Guarani” became a trending topic. The main complaints came from libertarian accounts , which questioned the fact that this language is taught in Buenos Aires schools and even falsely accused the head of government of having made it mandatory. For its part, Paraguay – the country to which Macri referred – is officially bilingual and, based on data from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, more than 87% of the population speaks Guaraní.
“Every day, a new nonsense from Jorge Macri. While in schools children do not learn to read Spanish, he counts as an achievement that Guaraní is taught. He squandered our taxes on a trip to Paraguay and now he says anything to justify it. Decadence at its finest,” said the legislator of La Libertad Avanza (LLA) Marina Kienast , who was replicated by the president of the block Pilar Ramírez , an ally of Karina Milei . Likewise, the accounts associated with Mileism joined in the darts.
Such was the scandal in the Capital that on Tuesday morning, the Minister of Education tried to clarify when she responded to a message written by the lawyer Alejandro Fargosi, linked to the management of Javier Milei , who considered it “absurd” not to dedicate time to better English and instead to “raving” about Guaraní or any other “non-dominant” language.
Miguel reacted to this. Buenos Aires is a global city that embraces communities and languages . We are pioneers in teaching English from the first grade in all public schools. Surely you confused what Jorge Macri said at the event we attended together ," the minister said.
Then, he explained about the use of this native language: “Guarani is not mandatory in the City, but there are workshops on demand for each school community within the Bilingual Intercultural Education” .
After that, he listed five points to explain how the Capital became, as he proposed, a bilingual city. “CABA is a pioneer in language teaching: since 2009, all primary schools have incorporated English from the first grade. As our challenge is always to go for more, we already have 23 bilingual public schools, where English has a high hourly load for teaching curricular content,” he said and added that the intention of this administration is to “expand” this modality.
“We also have 26 multilingual schools that teach English, Italian, French and Portuguese , providing more learning opportunities for our students. We have 25 Foreign Language Supplementary Educational Centers in all the City’s neighborhoods that operate after school hours for children from 9 to 17 years old who study in City schools. For those who are no longer of school age and were unable to learn English, we created the Ciudad Bilingüe platform, which allows students to study English online and obtain certifications. There are already more than 169,000 registered students taking advantage of this free opportunity to learn English at their own pace,” she listed.
To conclude, the minister pointed out, like a dart to the libertarian world: “For us, education is not an expense, it is an investment and we prove it with facts.”
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