How I Reformed Education in South America (2)

A month after preparations for the education reform had begun, Eugene delivered his first national address from the Presidential Palace.

Eugene's voice rode the airwaves, spilling from televisions and radios in every corner of the country.

There was something almost raw in his voice.

He looked straight into the camera and made the declaration without a flicker of hesitation.

At Eugene's words, people everywhere stopped what they were doing and listened.

A murmur rose across the country. Free meals if you went to school. Grain prices had crashed, yes — but this still sounded too good to be true.

The people who had listened this far were all thinking the same thing.

So what's so great about going to school, then?

Wouldn't you be better off making money with that time?

But Eugene, as if he had seen the question coming, announced exactly why you had to go.

Eugene drew a short breath, looked into the camera, and delivered his final line.

The moment the address ended, the whole of San Marcos turned upside down.

"Honey! Did you hear? They feed you if you go to school!"

"That's what you're stuck on? They're sending kids to study in America! And you can become a civil servant!"

"Jose! Get ready for school!"

"Mom, I don't wanna go to school..."

"Quiet! Even if all you do is go and eat, we come out ahead! Get going, now!"

And above all else —

"His Excellency ordered this... if we don't send them to school..."

"Don't even finish that sentence! You want to get hauled off to the mines?!"

Eugene's charisma had the parents who had never sent their children to school shaking in their boots.

And so, the following morning, the grounds in front of every school in San Marcos were a sea of people. Parents clutching their children's hands, older brothers with younger siblings on their backs — even fully grown young men — poured toward the schools in search of a chance to learn.

The schools, having received Eugene's strict orders, took in nearly all of them. Having absorbed numbers that shattered every capacity limit, an enormous chaos followed close behind.

And at the center of that chaos stood Sergio, Senior Presidential Secretary for Education.

"Secretary! We've got a crisis! We're running out of lunch boxes!"

"Get Tortilla F&B on the line! Tell them to run every production line at full capacity, right now! Don't leave a single unit in inventory — ship everything to the schools!"

"It's still not enough! Even at full capacity they say they can't cover half of it!"

"Then ask the bakeries and the restaurants for help! Tell them we'll settle every bill — just make the food and send it!"

The food problem, at least, could be papered over with money. The bigger problems were space and people.

"Secretary! The classrooms are bursting! Even the hallways are packed solid!"

"The athletic field! Pitch tents on the athletic field! If it isn't raining on their heads, that's a classroom!"

"And the staff? Nine teachers cannot handle two thousand students."

As fatal problems detonated one after another, Sergio made a decision. He would do it Eugene's way.

"Call up every official in the Ministry of Education! From junior clerks to deputy directors — round up every young one and send them to the schools!"

"S-sir? But they don't have teaching licenses..."

At his subordinate's objection, Sergio slammed his fist on the desk.

"His Excellency gave an order — you think this is the time to be picky? And since when do you need a teaching license to teach the alphabet and the multiplication tables?!"

"Y-yes, sir!"

The one mercy was that the overwhelming majority of San Marcos's population was concentrated in the capital, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Libertad. That made the movement of supplies and the placement of personnel relatively straightforward, and it meant the situation could still be controlled within the reach of the state's administrative power. Had there ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠been cities scattered across the whole country, it would have been unmanageable.

"Come on, move! His Excellency is watching!"

The photograph of Eugene hanging in the center of the office seemed to gleam.

This was bad. The policy had hit far harder than I'd expected.

The schools were on the verge of paralysis. No — they had already been paralyzed. Thinking about it after the fact, it made perfect sense. Graduate high school, and you had a job waiting for you.

Of course, San Marcos had companies. More of them than you'd expect, actually. There were trading firms that imported and exported grain, a port authority that ran the harbors, and a distribution company operating supermarkets all over Libertad.

The problem was the pay.

These salaries were a joke.

The average urban worker in San Marcos made two to three hundred dollars a month — wages that hadn't moved in decades. Compare that to the three hundred to three hundred fifty you could earn on a construction site or a coffee plantation, and an office job was easier on the body and not much else. There was no real advantage in the labor market.

A civil servant in a government ministry, though, was a different story. You started at three hundred fifty dollars, and the pay climbed with years of service and with rank. The catch, until now, had been that only military academy graduates could even apply. In a poor country like San Marcos, it was the best job there was. Get in, and you might not flip your entire life overnight — but a middle-class existence was guaranteed. In Korean terms, it was roughly the equivalent of landing a job at Hyundai, Samsung, or SK Hynix.

Which explained why the parents had completely lost their minds.

When the children who had never been coming to school poured out all at once, a hidden error in the statistics came to light. The actual number of children was far higher than the school-age population we thought we had on record. Which also meant that a great many children, never even caught on paper, had been having their labor exploited on farms and in the streets.

Why wouldn't you register a birth?

We knew the problem. Now we had to solve it. The meals, at least, we fixed by expanding Tortilla F&B's production lines. The shortage of classrooms we would endure with outdoor tents while we built more.

But there was one problem we simply could not solve: there were nowhere near enough teachers.

In San Marcos, anyone with a high school diploma or better could sit for an exam and earn a teaching license. Teachers in Korea — university graduates, most of them from prestigious schools — would have fainted at a system like that. San Marcos, however, did not even have teachers of that caliber. High school enrollment was under ten percent to begin with.

"Your Excellency, the student-to-teacher ratio has surpassed one hundred and fifty to one. We mobilized retired teachers and even the Ministry of Education staff. It was not enough."

The internal talent pool was already scraped to the bottom.

Which left only one answer. Bring in foreign workers.

"Let's import teachers from Venezuela."

Isabella's eyes went round.

"From Venezuela... Your Excellency?"

"Yes. The language is mutually intelligible, isn't it? Once we get them here, they'll do fine."

I said it with complete confidence. Portuguese or Spanish — six of one, half a dozen of the other. On top of that, San Marcos had been a Spanish colony before it was a Portuguese one, which made it a kind of Portuñol zone. The language barrier was as good as nonexistent.

"That may be so, but... will they actually come?"

"Of course it's hard. You're asking people to change their homes and their country. But there's a saying in Korea."

"What saying might that be...?"

"If they don't take the offer, ask yourself whether you offered enough money."

Isabella blinked.

"Let's give them what they need. Houses. Cars. Furniture. Everything required to settle in."

As Isabella had said, Venezuela's present situation would not have been out of place in the Great Depression. They had already staged a mass exodus into Colombia in 2018 and 2019, and most of them were treated as nothing more than refugees — almost none had built a real life. To the elites living in that hell, we were throwing a lifeline.

"A salary of four hundred dollars. Room, board, and a vehicle provided. Permanent residency after one year of service. How does that sound?"

"It would certainly be... a blessing in a drought. And they are highly skilled people. We could put them to use in other fields later, not only as teachers."

Four hundred dollars was a little under six hundred thousand won. In Korea, that wouldn't even cover a week's wages at a convenience store — but in San Marcos, it was enough to live on, cover every expense, and still put money into savings. And the same was true of Venezuela. Their GDP per capita was about the same as ours: a mere two thousand eight hundred and eighty dollars.

"Contact Director Lucio. Have SIA agents dispatched to Venezuela immediately and start the recruiting."

"What shall we set as the qualifications?"

"Anyone with a bachelor's or higher. Take them all."

"Might I suggest a slight modification to Your Excellency's instructions?"

"What is it?"

"Rather than dispatching field agents to Venezuela, what if we sent them to Colombia instead?"

"Colombia?"

"Yes. In Venezuela, the agents would have to travel around hunting for talent. Colombia has refugee camps. There would be no need."

"Damn."

That was Isabella for you. She'd caught the thing I'd missed in a single beat.

"And rather than sending agents into the field, what if we used social media? Persuading people through messages would be faster and simpler than walking around in person."

"Good. Proceed that way."

I watched Isabella leave the office with a faint smile, and I thought:

Thank god Venezuela's economy went to hell.

I'd heard their president was on the verge of being ousted. The will of the people really was the will of heaven — and if you wanted to keep the people's will, the economy came first.

I am not going to let that happen to me.

A few days later, a proposal riding in on social media sent a ripple through all of Venezuela.

A carpet-bombing of anonymous DMs had gone out across Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp alike.

The terms were so outrageous that reactions split to opposite extremes.

"Dude, this is obviously a scam."

"A job's one thing, but they're throwing in a house and a car?"

"Don't fall for it. This has organ-harvesting written all over it."

"Even if you go, you'll just end up running drugs for some gang."

"I heard San Marcos doesn't have gangs anymore. Their dictator wiped them all out."

"You idiot, you actually believe that?"

Most people snorted and deleted the message.

But the people already standing on the edge of a cliff thought differently.

Roberto had once graduated from Venezuela's finest engineering college and worked as an engineer — until the company collapsed, and he found himself two years into unemployment. He held his smartphone in a trembling hand.

"I'm going."

He didn't have the money to eat tomorrow. The electricity had been cut off long ago, and the rent was three months overdue. He could be thrown out any day. Leaving in search of hope was the right call a hundred times over.

"Are you insane? Do you even know where that is? What if it's a scam?"

"Starving to death here or dying over there — what's the difference? They're even sending a plane ticket. Worst case, I'm out nothing."

"......"

Roberto shook off his friends' attempts to stop him and sent a photo of his diploma. A reply came back in less than a minute.

The turnaround was so fast it made him suspicious, but he shut his eyes tight and got on the plane anyway.

And so, the next day, when Roberto arrived at Libertad International Airport, a pair of hulking men in black suits and sunglasses came toward him.

"Mr. Roberto?"

"Y-yes!"

"Come with us."

Without another word, the men snatched up his suitcase and put him in a black van. They drove for a long while through the city, and then —

"We're here. Get out."

They had arrived in front of an apartment building. It wasn't luxurious, but it was clean.

"...Excuse me?"

The man in sunglasses handed a bewildered Roberto two keys and an envelope.

"You'll be staying in unit 404. The car is in the parking garage. It's a bit old, but it's been serviced, so you shouldn't have any trouble with it. And this money should cover your first month's living expenses. Starting next month, you'll be on salary — live on that."

"......"

"Your major was mechanical engineering, correct?"

"Y-yes!"

"Then starting tomorrow, you'll be the science teacher at Libertad 7th Middle School. Since it's your first day, we'll send someone to show you around."

"P-pardon? A teacher? I thought I'd be working at a company. I'm a precision machinery engineer..."

At Roberto's question, the man smiled.

"Isn't that even better? How rewarding is it to teach the children who are this nation's future? On top of that, you're guaranteed civil servant status, and the paycheck comes in like clockwork. Where else are you going to find a job like that?"

"But I've never taught anyone in my life."

"You look at the textbook and you teach. Our kids are well-behaved. They'll listen."

"Th-that's... I mean, this is a bit..."

As Roberto hesitated, the man's expression went cold in an instant.

"If you don't want it, you're free to go back right now."

"What? But you even paid for my plane ticket. I can just leave?"

"Of course. Though the moment you decline the offer, you'll be an illegal immigrant — and you won't be getting on a return flight."

The man pointed toward the harbor and added, almost helpfully:

"If you jump into that ocean over there and swim hard across the Caribbean, you might make it home sometime next month."

"......"

"Your choice. Stay here, collect a steady paycheck, and get called 'teacher' — or play tag with the sharks all the way back home."

"I-I'll come to work."

"A wise decision."

And that was how Roberto was hired — whether he liked it or not — as a teacher in the great nation of San Marcos.