Walter Béneke

Carlos Walter Teodoro Béneke Medina (May 31, 1930 – April 27, 1980) was a Salvadoran politologist, economist, sociologist, journalist, and writer. He held various diplomatic positions and served as the head of the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

He is known for being at the forefront of the Educational Reform of 1968 and for being the promoter of the Televisión Educativa de El Salvador (Canal 10), under the presidential term of Fidel Sánchez Hernández.

In addition, he is the author of two national award-winning dramatic works: El paraíso de los imprudentes (1955) and Funeral Home (1958).

Formation

Walter Béneke was born in 1930, in the cradle of an upper-middle-class landlord family. He is the son of Sara Medina de Béneke, who was president of the "Sociedad de Señoras de la Caridad" (Society of Ladies of Charity), which manages the San Vicente de Paul Homes for the Elderly;

In the early 1950s, he traveled to Spain to study political science and economics at the Central University of Madrid.

In Japan, Béneke was impressed by the way the Japanese government used television for educational purposes. In 1962, he then asked the Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai (Japan Broadcasting Company) to conduct a study on the possibility of implementing instructional television in El Salvador. The results of this study were revealed and showed that it was very favorable to carry out the project and invest in the equipment to achieve it.

A commission was created in 1963 to carry out this project but failed to take concrete actions. In 1964 an educational television department was created, but it had little budget and priority by the minister of education at that time. In 1966, Béneke left his position as ambassador and was assigned to head the Educational Television Commission of El Salvador. After several meetings, they agreed to implement the program with students from the third cycle of basic education, taking into account the search for financing for the project. and implement the educational television in the classrooms.

Nevertheless, by 1968, this reform had generated an opposition, led by the teachers' union, the National Association of Salvadoran Educators, whose strikes paralyzed the country's educational system.

Other charges After serving as minister of education, in September 1971, he was reassigned to the position of minister of foreign affairs up to 1972. He was also director of the Central American Technological Institute and the Mortgage Bank of El Salvador; also, he was the secretary of the Embassy of El Salvador in Guatemala and ambassador of El Salvador in Austria.

Assassination Béneke was assassinated on April 27, 1980, outside his home in San Salvador. The suspect was hidden behind a tree outside his house, and when Béneke got out of his car he was wounded by a gunshot, then he walked a couple of meters and fell down in front of his house; the attacker escaped in a car that waited for him. It was never clarified the motive for the crime and who had been the perpetrator of his death. Béneke's funeral took place in the Corazón de María church in San Salvador.

Plays

El paraíso de los imprudentes (Ministry of Culture, Editorial Department, 1955) Funeral Home (Ministry of Culture, Editorial Department, 1958)