The news this week in El Salvador is that hair salons are overcrowded. It's gone viral, and videos and memes about it are flooding social media. There's a reason: President Nayib Bukele appointed a military officer as Minister of Education. The official's first order was that all children and adolescents must show up to school with closely cropped hair, their uniforms neat and tidy, and say "thank you" and "please" to adults. Those who don't do so -- or teachers who don't enforce the rules -- will face the consequences, he said in a statement.
On the night of Thursday, August 14, Bukele announced through his X account a new step in the militarization of his government and appointed Captain Karla Trigueros as Minister of Education. "Her mission will be to prepare future generations to successfully face the challenges of tomorrow and achieve the highest quality standards that the new El Salvador we are building will demand," Bukele wrote. A day later, the captain appeared in photographs, wearing her military uniform, hugging children in schools. On the fourth day, she gave her first order.
Captain Trigueros, according to Bukele, must collaborate in eradicating gangs, a war that was fought with the military in the streets and has now reached schools. For many, however, this is nothing more than justification for the militarization of public education.
"They say they're implementing anti-gang measures, but gangs are a consequence of the corruption and massive human rights violations committed during military governments. It seems President Bukele isn't afraid to repeat them," said Noah Bullock, director of Cristosal, a renowned human rights organization.
Since Trigueros's arrival at the ministry, the principals of every public school in El Salvador are required to meet with each student daily to supervise their dress code, manners, order, and discipline. Hundreds of students have been turned away at the gates of their schools and immediately sent to have their hair cut.
When contacted by telephone, six public school teachers agreed that the measures could improve order and discipline in schools where they had been lacking. But they also agreed that they do not consider it necessary to appoint a military officer as Minister of Education.
"This isn't strictly new. Asking parents to bring their children in clean uniforms and with a proper haircut is a long-standing measure. What the government is doing now is threatening that if this isn't done, the student will be expelled and the teacher will lose their position. What's new is that education will now be under threat, under the military boot," said a teacher in the municipality of Cuscatlán, in the central region of El Salvador, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of being fired.
"In our case, our school is under reconstruction, and for the moment we are holding classes in a borrowed space, a community center. The road leading to the school is difficult to access because it's covered in mud. The children rarely arrive clean. But we're not letting them miss out on classes because of that," said Juan Carlos Ortiz Ascencio, director of the Colonia Tazumal school in the western part of the country.
Captain Trigueros's appointment comes after nearly a year in which the Bukele administration has cultivated the idea that its war on gangs has spread from the streets to schools. This narrative began in April 2024, when principals were instructed to create profiles of students exhibiting "antisocial" behavior, which was interpreted by many as an extension of the thousands of police searches that have resulted in arbitrary arrests.
On May 2, Justice Minister Gustavo Villatoro announced the first student arrest, 17-year-old Anthony C., for having drawings alluding to the MS-13 gang in his notebooks. "Another young man who has failed to read the times and understand that in this country, people, government, and state, we will no longer tolerate any terrorist organization," he wrote. The teenager was sent to prison.
Two weeks later, on May 16, Villatoro announced the arrest of six more students, four of them minors, for orchestrating a fight inside their school. "All of them will be prosecuted for the crime of public disorder," the minister said. They too were jailed.
On June 24, authorities arrested 48 students from at least five public institutions accused of attempting to form a gang allegedly called La Raza Estudiantil (The Student Race). The Prosecutor's Office charged them with sexual assault, drug use, and physical assault against their classmates and those from other institutions without presenting any evidence. The students were sent to prison.
Arbitrary arrests without evidence are not an exception, but rather a norm in the "war on gangs" that Bukele has waged since March 2022. After three years of governing under a regime that restricts fundamental rights, human rights organizations have denounced thousands of unjustified arrests, rape and torture in prisons, and violations of due process. Under Bukele's regime, no one is considered innocent until proven guilty.
In early August, the Bukele-controlled Legislative Assembly announced a reform to the Penal Code that would allow all those detained under the state of emergency to be held in prison for two more years, meaning tens of thousands of people will spend at least five years in jail without being convicted.
The appointment of Captain Trigueros to head the Ministry of Education is not the only use Bukele has made of the Armed Forces. Since coming to power, the president has displayed a marked tendency toward militarism. He regularly publishes videos with thousands of soldiers lined up; he has used them to distribute food packages, to drive public transport buses after arresting business owners and confiscating their vehicles, to take over the Legislative Assembly, and even to combat a locust plague.