Last week was entertaining. La señora Cristina Kirchner has declared a increase of national holidays... and this in a country that already has a vacation day for everything from strikes, kids and wine.
The intention behind this publicity stunt (besides bolster her already sketchy public image) is supposedly to encourage tourism through freeing people up to travel and spend money. Genious that...
The problem is, these long weekend (especially the large number of them) wreck havoc on the education system. There are other negative effects to be sure, but these breaks in continuty of teaching a subject or material is really what has my fellow professors up in flames.
It's difficult enough as it is to convince our students that the do in fact need to attend class in order to pass their exams and finals; that they do in fact need to learn to write essays, analyze literature (not just translate it), or you know... maybe turn in assignments once every blue moon. Difficult when attendance is mandatory to only a fraction of the students.
I should probably explain a bit more. After all .... it took me almost a full month for me to figure out the system.
Those students who are "promocional" are required to show up to all classes (ish), turn in all assignments, and as a result if they do well (8 out of 10 or above) are not required to take the end of the year finals.
"Regular" students don't show nearly as often, are touch and go with assignments and have to take all exams.
And there's a strange classification which they call "libre" (direct translation is "free"). These students are expected to show when they show and their exams have an extra level difficulty. But if they pass they are allowed to move on to the next set of classes even though they haven't been attending classes. This third classing has its advantages for women with young children or those who have to work during scheduled class hours. But man it does not make our jobs any easier as educators!
Mom I am so proud of you right now!!
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