Bolivarian priorities, Venezuela as a superpower without schools

Today the former coup monger and current president of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez Frías, is in Barquisimeto's military airbase for the reception of 6 Chinese war airplanes.

The Chinese ambassador is with him. The planes are of the K8W type, a variety of a Hondu. Venezuela will get 12 more of those planes in December. Each plane costs between 3 and 3.5 million dollars. 3.5 times 18 is equal to 63 million.

The head of state said "Venezuela has to become a military power to be a world power at all". This is no joke.

Venezuela's GDP is lower than that of Greece, a country that has just one third of Venezuela's population. Venezuelan pupils have probably the worst level in Latin America. We are not sure how bad the level is now because the government refuses to take part in such open evaluation programmes as the PISA programme. Venezuela has the highest murder rate of South America, even higher than that of Colombia.

Today I also read in Notitarde about the children in my region. Take the ones in the Franciso de Miranda "school", in municipio Libertador, part of the electoral circuit the government created in January within the latest gerrymandering session. There are 193 children with no desks and no books. The kids now use articles from magazines and newspapers as support material. They have no classroom either. They have classes under the sky, just as my dad used to in the early forties of last century. At least my dad had to share his only teacher with less classmates. The teachers now are young women from the Misión Sucre who don't get money but help the children out of concern for them. Our Jefe and Pueblo in person is in Maracay getting the planes that will make Venezuela a super power.