Yesterday, Wednesday, May 8, the 10th dialogue and educational meeting for Education was held. A plural exercise convened by more than 20 civil society organizations, in which they presented each candidate for the Presidency with 10 specific questions about her strategy in educational matters.
There are 20 organizations that invest a lot of money throughout the year in promoting educational quality, through scholarships for students and teachers, school equipment, support in infrastructure and services, and teacher training and training.
They are, in short, social actors interested and involved due to their operational commitment, in knowing what the candidates are going to do if they win the elections.
This exercise has been carried out since 2012, and has remained completely non-partisan since then, with absolute plurality and openness.
Yesterday Xóchitl Gálvez and Jorge Álvarez attended, each in their time and individual space on stage to answer the 10 questions.
Notable was the absence of Mrs. Sheinbaum, who apologized a few hours before the event, citing a tour of the states.
Regrettable, as was said there on stage, since these types of exercises are successful to the extent that proposals and initiatives are expressed and ideas are contrasted.
Each candidate was sent a document with the 10 questions and a framework researched and verified by experts in the field.
Perhaps the absence of the official candidate is due to the fact that the diagnosis of the system is frankly deplorable.
For your consideration, dear reader:
• The results of the PISA 2022 test were lower than 2018 evaluations.
• In mathematics, 14 points lower than the 2018 results (two decades back).
• 1 in 3 students reached the minimum level in mathematics (PISA – OECD).
• 5 out of 10, minimum reading level (the other 5 failed).
• In the 2022-2023 cycle, 1 in 10 Mexicans aged 13 to 14 did not attend school.
• In the same cycle, coverage in basic and upper secondary education was lower by 1.57 million Mexicans. (SEP 2019-2023).
• 9,157 children’s homes were closed, affecting 317,323 children who lost early stimulation services, teaching habits and other complementary exercises. (Coneval, 2019).
• 3.6 million students from 25 thousand schools throughout the country – mostly highly marginalized – lost extended days and food services (Coneval).
• 95% of the resources in the Program for Teacher Professional Development were withdrawn, which collapsed the training of teachers in Mexico (SHCP, 2024).
• The amount allocated per teacher for training is 80 pesos in 2024, the lowest in 25 years (SHCP, 2024).
• 7.4% basic schools and 13.3% upper secondary schools do not have electricity (SEP, 2023).
• 22% basic schools and 25.5% upper secondary schools do not have drinking water (SEP, 2023).
• 42% of basic schools and 30% of upper secondary schools do not have computers (SEP, 2023).
• 47% of upper secondary schools do not have internet access.
To these devastating official figures, from the SEP itself, Coneval and the OECD, add problems of school dropouts in secondary education (4 out of 10), educational lag in learning due to the impact of the pandemic, not yet sufficiently measured and studied .
The public education that López Obrador’s administration will inherit is a national disaster, marked by the lack of resources – which were granted in budgets, but withdrawn to be assigned to other projects – and the gradual dismantling of areas, offices and those responsible for it itself. SEP.
The “poor first” was reflected in a policy of abandoning the most marginalized schools, producing tens of thousands of young people who left school and sought a life elsewhere. Presumably co-opted by organized crime.
The three disastrous Secretaries of Public Education (Moctezuma, Delfina and a certain Leticia that no one knows) destroyed the advances that the previous reform had built; the INEE (National Institute of Evaluation for Education) was eliminated; The necessary and vital teacher evaluation and promotion system based on pedagogical projects and academic merits, not on union decisions, was dismantled.
In fact, AMLO returned control of positions and power to the unions, returning the country’s education to the worst scenario of the 70s.
It is not without reason that Claudia Sheinbaum declined to participate in this Forum and respond directly to educators and academics about her plans to reverse this debacle. There are none, or probably, as in the COVID special report, they reject the diagnosis. (Be careful, these are their figures).
It will take years to reverse the pernicious effects of an ideologized textbook, the elimination of teacher training, and competitiveness within the teaching profession.
