Education for the Economy to Come

When we discuss Mendoza's economic development, we typically focus on investments, our available resources, and new productive projects that can generate employment. That makes sense. But there's a question we should ask ourselves first. Are our young people prepared to seize the opportunities that development can create?

For me, that's one of the most important discussions we have ahead.

Mendoza has natural resources, a diversified economy, companies, entrepreneurs, and productive sectors with capacity to grow. Mining opens new possibilities in that scenario. But an investment doesn't automatically transform into development for a province. For that to happen, we need trained workers, local suppliers, technicians, professionals, entrepreneurs, and people capable of incorporating new technologies. That's why development is also built through education.

Education Minister Tadeo García Zalazar holds that society must be trained to be a protagonist of the new economy.

In recent years we've begun working on an idea that I consider central. Schools and the education system cannot be disconnected from what happens outside. We need to educate for the world that exists, but also for the one that's coming.

This means recovering a culture of merit. Talent, effort, discipline, excellence, and opportunities aren't contradictory concepts. They must be part of the same education system. A society that wants to progress needs to recognize those who make an effort and, at the same time, create the conditions so that effort can become a real opportunity.

This means strengthening fundamental learning, but also incorporating new capacities. In our secondary schools, more than 20,000 students are already training as Artificial Intelligence operators. And we're expanding that opportunity to young people aged 18 to 25 across the 18 departments, because learning to use these tools can also open new employment opportunities.

Minister Tadeo García Zalazar and Pablo Aristozabal, an AI specialist.

AI is transforming how we study, work, and produce. That's why it must enter education. Not to replace teachers or thinking, but to expand the capacities of both professors and students. The challenge isn't teaching a fashionable technology, but preparing people to use it with discernment, solve problems, and generate new opportunities.

It also means expanding technical and professional training. When young people tell us they want to study careers linked to energy, oil, mining, technology, or that they're looking for short-term careers with job placement, we need to listen to that demand and bring our educational offerings closer to those needs.

Ultimately, the educational map must dialogue with the productive map. Not so that education becomes subordinate to a company's immediate needs, but so we can anticipate what capacities our province will need and offer our young people tools to participate in that development.

And this means including those who had to interrupt their studies. A person who completes secondary school after having dropped out gains more than a diploma. They recover a tool that improves their chances of accessing employment, continuing their studies, or improving their job situation. That's why we've expanded completion alternatives, with in-person, virtual, and combined secondary-plus-vocational training programs.

The same logic guides our agreements with companies, unions, and productive sectors. Education must know what capacities the working world needs, and the working world must also be involved in training those who will lead it.

When we think about mining, it's not enough to discuss how much is invested, how much is produced, or how many jobs a project can generate. We also must ask what we're going to do starting today so that Mendocans can fill those positions, develop services around those activities, and generate new opportunities from them.

Industrial policy begins in school. Before a factory, an investment, or a new technology, you must build the human capacities that make them possible.

Minister Tadeo García Zalazar emphasizes as essential creating conditions for equal access to opportunities through education.

The same holds true for artificial intelligence, energy, tourism, industry, and new activities we don't yet know about.

We don't know exactly what all jobs will look like in ten years. What we do know is that they'll demand different capacities. More technical knowledge, ability to learn continuously, technology skills, languages, critical thinking, and problem-solving ability.

That's why I believe education is one of the main economic development policies a province can have. And it's also an equality policy. Because if the opportunities generated by a new growth period remain reserved for those who can educate themselves through their own means, development deepens differences. But if the State broadens training opportunities and allows more people to develop their talent, merit and effort stop depending so much on where each person was born.

Equal opportunity doesn't mean everyone reaches the same place. It means everyone has the possibility to develop their capacity and that effort can open a path for them.

Mendoza needs to grow. But it also needs that growth to generate progress for its people. Because a province's development doesn't depend solely on the resources it has. It depends, increasingly, on what its people are capable of doing with them.

And preparing our young people for that is one of the most important decisions we can make today.