On August 15, Captain and physician Karla Edith Trigueros took office as the new head of the Ministry of Education in El Salvador. This is no small feat: for the first time in decades, a military officer is at the helm of the national education system. The political message is clear: President Nayib Bukele is bringing military discipline to public policy, and now also to the classroom.

The reaction from teachers’ unions was swift. Teachers’ organizations called the appointment «aberrant» and warned of a «militarization» of public education. What is at issue is not the need for school rules, but the nature of the authority that dictates them. When discipline is decreed from a military office and backed up by threats of sanctions, schools run the risk of becoming barracks, where the objective is not to foster critical thinking, but to ensure obedience to the regime’s provisions.

The government, for its part, defends the designation in the name of «quality» and «values ​​of respect,» presenting it as part of a profound transformation of the education system. The president himself publicly endorsed his minister’s initial measures and promised to «completely transform» education. However, it’s worth asking what «respect» means when it’s measured in centimeters of hair or the fold of a uniform.

No one disputes the need for rules in schools. The question is who establishes them, how they are agreed upon, and for what purpose. It’s one thing for them to be the result of dialogue between teachers, students, and families; quite another to impose them under a military logic. The former fosters citizenship; the latter, uncritical discipline. School should be a place where we learn to question, not to conform.

If we truly want safe schools in El Salvador, the debate must focus on well-being, resources, and pedagogical freedom: classrooms without overcrowding, supported teachers, timely materials, and decent infrastructure. The necessary discipline is not that of immaculate uniforms, but that of a State that fulfills its obligations and listens to its educational community.