Venezuela’s Polarized Society Split by Another Issue: Chávez’s Robust Educational Reform Roils the Political Waters

On August 6, the Venezuelan legislature passed the controversial Organic Law of Education, in the face of walkouts by opposition senators and widespread street demonstrations. The fiercely contested law provides the government with a stronger role in developing and streamlining the Venezuelan admittedly dysfunctional public education. However, the law ended up further polarizing an already deeply divided society, with some opposition figures claiming that the new legislation is merely an attempt to flesh out and consolidate the Bolivarian Revolution through ideological catechism. Dissenters vowed to openly defy the law, which prompted President Hugo Chávez to respond that the law would be carried out despite the opposition’s rancorous objections.

The State as Educator

Since Ch ávez’s first years in office, education reform has been an issue that has caused deep divisions between the Chávez regime and the middle class opposition. In 2000, parents first began to protest over what they claimed were Cuban textbooks being introduced into Venezuelan schools. This represented one of the first organized demonstrations against the Chávez administration that served to underscore a deep-seated class-based fear within the Venezuelan Right, namely that Chávez would attempt to infuse the school curriculum with the principles of Bolivarian socialism. Although a preliminary draft of the newly-approved law was first passed in 2001, the new legislation further deepens the state’s commitment to the educational process, as well as redefines its role in it.

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