schooling in Argentina?

[IntlMama]

I am not very familiar with the Argentine school system and I am wondering what route other parents have taken?

 

[kalley]

I remember having read this interesting post called Bilingual Kids and Argentine Schools on the blog Sugar & Spice, and I think it's useful information to share here. I don't have any little ones, so I'm afraid I can't add much more to the discussion.

 

[Nicole_Ramirez]

I have a 8year old in a private school & the 4 year old in public. The 8 year old was in public last year & it was a horrible experience for us & him because the teacher didn't like the fact that he came from the States. The 4 year old is in a different public school & it is fantastic & he barely speaks spanish.

 

[ndcj]

I send my eldest to a public school, in 6th grade. It was a tough decision, but I think probably the best one at least for us. Nothing teaches you a language like being immersed in it at school in an environment where no one speaks English!

We're outside of the city and we looked at a number of private schools and most of them fell well short of the curriculum we would expect to find. A lot of them didn't seem any huge improvement over a public school other than perhaps a prettier building and some computers.

There are excellent public schools in Argentina and I'm sure excellent private schools. There are also plenty of horrible schools of both persuasions. Be careful particularly with very small private schools, a lot of whom seem to exist almost purely as a business.

If you want to keep your children on track for an eventual return to school in your home country, no matter where you send them you will need to be prepared to be thoroughly involved in your child's education. Get text books, exams, etc from your home country and track that they are achieving the kind of results they ought be and be prepared to basically home school them on top of whatever option you choose. I think your choice of school becomes less important the more hard work you're willing to put in.

Argentina has a very low number of tuition hours per year for primary and secondary school compared to many other parts of the world. Use that extra time before or after school to help them keep on track with "back home" or engage in something stimulating that they enjoy, like music, art or languages.

Anyway, that's my two pesos worth. I hope it helps.

 

[katti]

My kids go to a private bilingual school. They were 16 and 14 when we got here. We had no other choice, as I wanted to keep the option open to go back to Belgium 2 and 4 years later.
I checked the universities in Belgium where they told me they need to do their IB exams so i went looking for that. Few schools do this international IB program.
Bilingual schools do a double program, they do the national one (in Spanish) and on top of that, to get to international standards, they get more maths, science and languages.
My kids had 32h school in Belgium, in argentina they have 40 hours. (in this there are 5h of sports a week, in Belgium they had 2h a week)

So now, after 2 years, my son is turning 18 and is in his last year, finishes in december, hopefully has his IB. He is fluent english (his 3th language, but he is doing IB English first language high level, which was required), and fluent spanish (he spoke no spanish before we got here, now he does IB spanish second language high level). He will return to Belgium in february to jump in the 2nd semester in university. He is half a year behind on his Belgian friends and he hopes to catch up.

When you chose a school it is in my opinion important not to cut off/limit their future. I first looked for a school here, only after I found one that was in my opinion good enough, we decided to move here.

 

[fifs2]

Interesting comments on the public schools here so let me just add a vote for private bilingual schooling which my own kids have been in since 6 months. The eldest is soon turning 8 and has a long school day from 7.45 to 4.30pm with an hour for lunch which is more tuition hours than most schools in the world. We placed him in a Spanish only kindergarten for his first four years to ensure he was truly bilingual before starting pre-school and we are really pleased that his grades are excellent in all subjects in both Spanish and English. The school and teachers are truly excellent, true professionals who clearly love children so whilst there may be private schools that indeed do look pretty and have lots of computers our experience is that the substance of the teaching is excellent, particularly benchmarking him (which is hard to do) against our friends kids in Europe.

Enjoy the search - with an open mind, lots of questions, samples of course content from the schools, meeting other parents and a good gut feeling you will find what you need for you and your kids Im sure.

 

[chris]

My kids go to a private bilingual school. They were 16 and 14 when we got here. We had no other choice, as I wanted to keep the option open to go back to Belgium 2 and 4 years later.
I checked the universities in Belgium where they told me they need to do their IB exams so i went looking for that. Few schools do this international IB program.
Bilingual schools do a double program, they do the national one (in Spanish) and on top of that, to get to international standards, they get more maths, science and languages.
My kids had 32h school in Belgium, in argentina they have 40 hours. (in this there are 5h of sports a week, in Belgium they had 2h a week)

So now, after 2 years, my son is turning 18 and is in his last year, finishes in december, hopefully has his IB. He is fluent english (his 3th language, but he is doing IB English first language high level, which was required), and fluent spanish (he spoke no spanish before we got here, now he does IB spanish second language high level). He will return to Belgium in february to jump in the 2nd semester in university. He is half a year behind on his Belgian friends and he hopes to catch up.

When you chose a school it is in my opinion important not to cut off/limit their future. I first looked for a school here, only after I found one that was in my opinion good enough, we decided to move here.

Sounds as though you made wise decisions.

I'm interested in hearing from the parents who enrolled their kids in state schools. Was it difficult to get them admitted?

I've heard about anti-Americanism from state school teachers. An Argentine friend attended a state school which he hated. He always admired the US and apparently let that be known to one of the teachers who in return made the sarcastic comment that he did not like people who always "looked to the north". The school was named after a US President, a fact that my friend found ironic.

 

[ndcj]

I'm interested in hearing from the parents who enrolled their kids in state schools. Was it difficult to get them admitted?

No, there is absolutely no difficulty enrolling any child in a public school - here all children have an absolute right to education, regardless of their immigration status.

All you need to enroll them is their ID document (passport is fine).