Education Reform - an Ongoing Struggle in Mexico

"Did you realize that Mexico's department of education has a mission statement? Do you know that the effort to educate all of Mexico's children has been under a reform effort for years? 

For several summers, our language study groups have visited schools, both public and private. Here is the mission statement posted in the office of the school principal. Their mission is "to provide basic services of education with quality and equity in order to develop competencies for life, with emphasis living together in harmony. (Loosely translated.) 

The Vision for education goes on to say that "in 2015, the system of basic education in Querétaro will reach high levels of academic achievement in an assessment framework for results and contribute to elevating the quality of life in society."

The Institutional Values include "a close relationship, efficiency, respect, honesty, transparency, responsibility and loyalty."

This is an impressive promise to the Mexican public, is it not? And, just like our US Department of Education, Mexican politicians continue to affect change and improvement.

Some years ago, the federal government attempted to reform teacher evaluation. That effort was met with demonstrations, school gates hung with banners of protest and extreme activism in various parts of the country. As I remember, Oaxaca suffered from blockades and even car fires in protest. 

Now, the federal government has moved to a deeper approach to reform: restructuring how children learn. The country’s educational model, from preschool to preparatory school, has been updated, paring back the volume of content, favoring comprehension over memorization in language and mathematics and designating classes of English and social and emotional skills as obligatory. The last time the federal government implemented a new educational model was in 1959 and although it has since been modified, the changes were not substantial.

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According to Mexico News Daily, "Mexico is dead last in educational standards as measured by the OECD  (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development), yet spends more on education than any other member country." It was announced by President Peña Nieto and Education Secretary Aurelio Nuño, who pointed to the need for an “educational revolution.”

Here are a few things to watch for, as the system undergoes a fairly dramatic change:

• the granting of managerial and study plan autonomy to individual public schools, allowing for greater participation by parents in determining what subjects are to be taught.
• the study plans of secondary schools created in accordance with those of preparatory schools, establishing a common curricular framework for the first time.
• the rewriting of textbooks by a group of experts and a one-year training program for teachers to familiarize them with the new model and school autonomy scheme.

By the end of next year teachers are expected to be able to teach the basics of the English language, which will become a mandatory subject for all public education students.

Officials hope the new model will reduce the amount of information that students receive passively and instead help them “learn to learn". “We focus on key skills, like communication in [the student’s] mother tongue, Spanish and English; mathematical thinking and the exploration of the natural and social world, along with civic and ethical academic training.” said an undersecretary of education. “This will be complemented with the development of social and emotional skills, and a strengthening of physical and artistic education.​

The new model has had input from teachers, parents and representatives of business and private citizens, who contributed with over 300,000 observations.

​Education authorities don’t expect to see any impact of the new model any time soon, expecting the first results to be measured in 10 years.

​Next up: How are teachers reacting?