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LatinNews Daily - 20 August 2018

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López Obrador seeks new national education agreement in Mexico

Development: On 19 August the government transition team appointed by Mexico’s President-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced the launch of a series of public forums to discuss the drafting of a new national agreement to promote education in the country.

Significance: López Obrador criticised the 2012-2013 education reform promoted by the outgoing government led by President Enrique Peña Nieto, to which some unionised teachers remain staunchly opposed to, during the election campaign. López Obrador had said that if elected he would be prepared to scrap the education reform and draft a new reform in consultation with all teachers’ unions to ensure that it enjoys widespread public support that would ensure its success. The 2012-2013 reform was designed to reduce some of the overbearing influence that teachers’ union currently enjoy over Mexico’s national education sector, which has been identified as a factor that has been holding back education in Mexico. The worry is that by scrapping the reform and drawing up a new one, the López Obrador administration could end up giving more influence back to the unions, to the detriment of education in Mexico.

  • The announcement of a public consultation over education policy was made by López Obrador’s designated education minister, Esteban Moctezuma Barragán. In a press release Moctezuma said that the transition government team had decided to hold a public consultation process to come up with a “new national education agreement”, akin to the public consultations currently being held to discuss future public security policy.
  • Moctezuma said that the consultation process would consist of opening a digital platform in which from 25 August anyone could submit their proposal on education policy. In addition, the transition team will also organise 32 public forums across the country from 27 August- 29 October to hear proposals before drafting a new prospective agreement to be implemented as soon as the López Obrador administration assumes office on 1 December.
  • According to Moctezuma, the idea behind the consultation process is to “listen to the voices and experiences of the actors linked to education, specially teachers”. Moctezuma added that “We are seeking to build a consensus that would allow us to, through education, overcome the lags of poverty, marginalisation, and exclusion” in the country.

Looking Ahead: It remains to be seen what sort of national education agreement comes out of the public consultation process called by the López Obrador government transition team. However, the worry is that this could thwart the implementation of the 2012-2013 reform including the new national education model introduced under the reform and which is only due to come into effect this school year, which starts today (20 August).  

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