page_title: Bahía Blanca
section_title: Culture and education
hierarchical_section_title: Bahía Blanca / Culture and education
caption_attribution_description: Argentine Club, Bahía Blanca, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina
context_page_description: Bahía Blanca is a city in the southwest of the province of Buenos Aires, Argentina, by the Atlantic Ocean, and is the seat of government of Bahía Blanca Partido. It had 301,572 inhabitants according to the 2010 census [INDEC]. It is the principal city in the Greater Bahía Blanca urban agglomeration.
  The city has an important sea port with a depth of 45 feet, kept constant upstream almost all along the length of the bay, where the Napostá Stream drains.
  Bahía Blanca means "White Bay". The name is due to the typical colour of the salt covering the soil surrounding the shores. The bay was seen by Ferdinand Magellan during his first circumnavigation of the world on the orders of Charles I of Spain, in 1520, looking for a canal connecting the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean along the coasts of South America.
context_section_description: The city is a developed one including cultural and educational aspects. It has a permanent Symphony Orchestra and a Company of Classical Ballet (Ballet del Sur) with an associate School of Classic Dances.
  For further education there are two tertiary institutes and two national universities. The first ones are Instituto Superior Juan XXIII, (probably linked to the future UNISAL (standing for Universidad Salesiana) of the Salesians) and Instituto Avanza (tertiary institute of humanities). National Universities are Facultad Regional Bahía Blanca Universidad Tecnológica Nacional, devoted mainly to exact sciences and intended for students who do have a job for making a living, with formal activities in the evening; and Universidad Nacional del Sur (National University of the South), founded in January 1956. This last one has associated internationally known institutes of research in biological, biochemical and technological sciences such as INIBIB and Instituto de Oceanografia, among others. Both national universities are free of tuition fees for all students.
  Nobel laureate César Milstein was born and raised in Bahía Blanca.
  Initial and basic education depend on the Province of Buenos Aires although there is a locally elected Municipal Educational Counselor holding some degree of influence and supervision on both. The system was transformed about ten years ago through the Secretary of Education. What used to be a system with primary (mandatory) and secondary (non-mandatory) education before continuing university studies (the 'French model') became Basic General Education (mandatory) and Polimodal Education (the 'Spanish-Catalan model') although nowadays it is being reviewed and likely to be modified again. Free education is granted by the state although there are semi-private and private schools.
  There are reputed provincial Schools of Plastic Arts and Music, free of tuition fees. Foreign languages are taught at public schools at a rather basic level. However, there are local foreign language schools such as the Asociación Bahiense de Cultura Inglesa (English, also taught by many other institutions), the Alliance Française (French), the Dante Alighieri Society (Italian) and Goethe-Institut (German), all of them private although with a good number of students. Portuguese is also taught. There used to be a school of Basque language at "Unión Vasca" also named "Euzkadi" with a much smaller group of students.
  There are several Non-governmental organizations such as The International Red Cross, Rotary Clubs, Lions Clubs and multiple cultural and community associations, some of them intended to group descendants of immigrants promoting their respective culture, strengthening links between them and those already established with the Argentine society.
caption: Club Argentino
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