How corruption in Mexican schools led to violence
The unrest in Mexico started
long before the
murders of 42
students in Agualo
this October. According
to the BBC,
the students had
come to Guerrero
with the intent
of supporting the
local teachers against job discrimination,
taking part in
protests that began
last year in
response to President
Peña Nieto’s
Educational Reform Law.
The law, enacted
in September of
2013, requires teachers to undergo
standardized certification testing and performance
reviews based on
merit. These tests
would determine hiring and promotion
of teachers and
limit the power
of SNTE, el
Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de
la Educación, the
primary teachers’ union in Mexico
that has controlled
the educational process in Mexico
since 1932.
President Peña Nieto was elected
in 2012 with
an agenda of
wide-spanning reform
in criminal courts
and education. The Educational Reform
Law came the
behest of Mexicanos
Primeros, an organization
that has been
advocating for educational reform for
many years due
to the blatant
corrupt practices sanctioned by the
SNTE and their
former president Elba Esther Gordillo,
who has since
been imprisoned on charges of
embezzlement.
According to Borgen
Magazine, teaching positions in Mexico
could be “sold,
inherited, or even
bartered for.” In rural areas
where more vocal
teacher’s protests
groups are from,
union interests and teaching sometimes
are at odds.
In Oaxaca, a
rural southern Mexican state, teachers
have been known
to take second
jobs with the
union and then
not show up
to their classrooms
to teach. Final
year students working
on social service
projects are called
to substitute, or if no one is available,
students are simply
sent away. AQ
online describes those teachers in
Mexico as “maestros
aviators,” or “aviator teachers” because
of their frequent
absenteeism in schools.
At the enactment
of the bill,
a subsidiary of
the more massive
teachers’ union, the National Worker’s Coordinating Committee,
organized teacher’s protests. Teachers
in Guerrero, the
southwestern Mexican state where October’s murders occurred,
walked off their
jobs. According to the Boston
Review, protests took place throughout
2013 in Mexico
City. As recently
as July 2014,
teachers were engaged
in violent protests
that included the
destruction of office buildings and
police vehicles.
Many of the
teachers believe that the reform
paints them as
the problem in
the ailing educational
system that has
not put adequate
emphasis on fixing
the educational infrastructure. Schools in many regions,
especially poorer ones like Guerrero,
often lack sufficient
funds to pay
electricity bills.
It is not
that Mexico is
not spending the
money on education;
it is that
funds are being
mismanaged. According to the OECD in 2013, even
though the Mexican
budget allocated 6.2 percent of its 2010 budget, which is
close to the
OECD’s average,
the government only spends about
20 percent of
its GDP per
capita on each
student, which is 8 percent lower than the
average spending of OECD nations.
Most of the
funds, 93.3
percent allocated for education, go
to employees and
administrators. This substantiates the claim
of many teachers
that the educational
infrastructure in Mexico is being
mismanaged.
Meanwhile, the quality of Mexico’s education system
is suffering. According
to Mexicanos Primeros,
Mexico currently enrolls only 0.7 percent of its students in
advanced level mathematics. Compare that to the US, which employs
9.9 percent.
Many poor children
and families that
are affected by
the lack of
educational consistency are forced to
look elsewhere for opportunities, often
immigrating to other countries in
North and South
America.
After the murders
of the students
in Guerra and
the revelations of shady government
involvement, tensions are high. The
focus of the
outrage has shifted
from the corruption
in the educational
system toward the
complicity of the
government in violence.
But Mexico’s
students still need education reform.
This tension continues
to put stress
on the already
ailing and corrupted
educational system in Mexico and
on its citizens,
who still wait
for answers.