Education suffers in El Salvador

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Lois Miller, a student at San Francisco State University, visited El Salvador Jan. 15-25, 1985, as part of a delegation of students from seven U.S. universities. The tour was conducted under the auspices of the United States Student Association, at the invitation of the director of the National University of El Salvador. At the university, which was reopened in May 1984 after a fouryear closure, the students met with the General Union of El Salvadoran Students (AGEUS).

The following interview was conducted in San Francisco by Millie Gonzalez.

Socialist Action: What was the purpose of the meeting of the U.S. student delegation with AGEUS at the University of El Salvador?

Lois Miller: The visit was designed to build concrete international ties between the University of El Salvador "We Inquired without results about the political prisoners."

and universities in the United States and to put pressure on the government of EI Salvador to restore funding to the university.

The university is constantly being harassed. For one thing it is denied a decent budget. The university is only being funded at a quarter of its original budget. This does not include any extra money for reconstruction of the San Salvador campus, which has sustained an estimated $30 million dollars worth of damage.

The law-school and medical-school programs, which before 1980 provided services for the poor, are no longer functioning because of the budgetary cutbacks and the damage to the buildings. The clinic was destroyed. The hospital is now being used as a military hospital. They can no longer provide services for the people. The budget now is only enough to provide a few faculty and administrative salaries.

S.A.: Is AGEUS analogous to the Associated Student Bodies in the universities of the United States?

Miller: AGEUS has many similarites to Associated Student Bodies. Its members work as representatives of the students on campus and act as go-betweens between the administration and the student body. The big difference is that AGEUS is not officially sanctioned by the government of El Salvador or by the university.

And it does many things that Associated Students wouldn't do. For instance, it provides material aid to the students. It also conducts fund-raising to buy materials for the university departments, as well as to provide medical supplies and material aid for refugees and people outside of the university. So it is not only supplying the needs of the campus but it also recognizes that, as students, they have a responsibility toward the larger community.

S.A.: How does the low budget affect the operations of the university and the kind of activites that AGEUS engages in?

Miller: One of the ways in which AGEUS helps is to organize work crews. The students, faculty, and administrators all participate in helping to rebuild the university-putting up walls, sweeping up messes. This kind of volunteer work allows the money that they have to go to faculty salaries.

But there was so much destruction that the money is also desperately needed for things like microscopes. The only recognized school of medicine in El Salvador has only four microscopes.

The university, which was free before the closing, has had to impose small fees on the students. This has cut down on the enrollment quite a bit, since the people of El Salvador are very poor. The Students rounded up by security forces during closing of National University in San Salvador on June 26,1980