Spanish
San Salvador.- El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele defended this Monday the "order" and "discipline" measures implemented in the country's public schools and ordered by the newly appointed Minister of Education, Captain Karla Trigueros, while pointing out that they are to "avoid" gangs in schools.
The leader published a video on X where he shows alleged gang members and wrote: "This is what educational centers in our country used to be like: places for recruiting gang members."
Bukele pointed out that "they were not just any gangs, but the most bloodthirsty in the world."
"Today, many mothers mourn their children who are in prisons; others, those who are in the cemetery or are still missing," she said.
According to the Salvadoran president, "the disciplinary measures in schools seek to prevent this tragedy from happening again."
“They say that those who do not know their history are condemned to repeat it,” he wrote and added, “El Salvador will not repeat it, no matter how much they criticize us.”
The appointment of Trigueros, who entered as a cadet at the Captain General Gerardo Barrios Military School in January 2007 and subsequently obtained a scholarship to study Medicine at the Universidad Salvadoreña Alberto Masferrer, has divided opinions in the country, with positions for and against.
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El Salvador's public schools have implemented since last week a strict control that includes checking that students wear a clean uniform, appropriate hair, and offer a respectful greeting, as a measure of "order and discipline" promoted - as one of its first actions - by Minister Trigueros. In addition, the minister has sent public schools a Regulation for the Promotion of School Courtesy, which will come into effect from September 1, as announced by Trigueros on X on Sunday. "We want every child and teenager to grow up practicing expressions as simple but fundamental as: Good morning, please and thank you, thus strengthening civic culture in our schools," he pointed out. According to the document published by the minister, the omission of what is mandated will be equivalent to between 1 and 15 "demerits" which include suspension from the school year and 'school privileges'.
