{"id":6972,"date":"2016-04-07T11:34:58","date_gmt":"2016-04-07T17:34:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lavozlit.com\/?p=6972"},"modified":"2016-04-07T11:34:58","modified_gmt":"2016-04-07T17:34:58","slug":"mexico-the-cnte-fight-back-against-the-education-reform","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/2016\/04\/07\/mexico-the-cnte-fight-back-against-the-education-reform\/","title":{"rendered":"[Mexico] The CNTE Fight Back Against the Education Reform"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Photo
Photo by Saul Lopez<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\n
\nBy Francisco Nicol\u00e1s Bravo, Member of the CNTE (National Coordination of Education Workers) in Mexico<\/em>
\n <\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Pe\u00f1a Nieto\u2019s Anti-Labor Structural Reforms<\/h2>\n

 
\nPe\u00f1a Nieto\u2019s government has imposed a series of the so-called \u201cstructural reforms\u201d, like a labor reform, an electoral reform, a tax reform and has advanced the privatization of the energy, electricity and education sector. The goal of those reforms is to enrich even further the corporations and increase the inequalities between the owner of money and the working class.
\n 
\nSeveral studies show that 80% does not match the living standard and 20$ of the population lives in extreme poverty, with $1\/day. Two radically opposed Mexico\u2019s co-exist and this is the true source of the ongoing and recurrent social conflicts in the country.
\n 
\nPe\u00f1a Nieto is just carrying forward the neoliberal project of his predecessor. In 2009 Calderon government eliminated the public electricity company \u201cLuz y Fuerza del Centro\u201d firing more than 40,000 electricians promising instead that the new optic fiber cable will be a deal. Now Pe\u00f1a Nieto is taking on the last step of the dismantling of the national oil public company: PEMEX.
\n 
\nIn the last decades, the Mexican government has turned 96 million hectares of national land to national and foreign companies for their exploitation. This has furthered the destruction of ecosystems. The last example was the destruction of the 57 hectares of mangrove in Tajamar (Canc\u00fan) so real estate speculators can build infrastructure for tourism. 35% of the mangrove of the country has succumbed to real estate speculation.
\n 
\nOn the labor front, Pe\u00f1a Nieto has legalized Outsourcing in 201, the trial hiring\u2019s, the hiring by the hour, lowered wages, increased flexibilization, etc. This is a real butchery of labor rights. The average wage is of 70 pesos for an 8\/h day (US$4), while even the most conservative studies argue that to have an average life a worker should earn three times more.
\n 
\nThis context of social attacks, couple with the daily violence of organized crime and the Mexican State (Ayotzinapa) are the context where the government imposed in 2012 an \u201cEducation Reform\u201d which has met an extraordinary resistance of the teachers organized around the CNTE (National Coordination of Education Workers).
\n <\/p>\n

The Neoliberal \u201cEducation Reform\u201d<\/h2>\n

 
\nThe Education Reform started with a sudden modification of articles 3 and 73 of the Mexican Constitution by the Congress on December 2012, just right after Pe\u00f1a Nieto came to power. Behind the reform lies a coalition of corporate interests called \u201cMexico Primero\u201d (Mexico First), which is linked to Televisa, a major Mexican TV and network corporation. This corporate lobby had been leading a campaign against public education, blaming teachers and unions of the crisis of public education.
\n 
\nThe main aspects of the constitutional reform include a) the introduction of \u201cquality education\u201d without a clear definition of the term, linked to the corporate vocabulary of \u201cefficiency\u201d and \u201ccompetence\u201d, b) the imposition of a mandatory system of credentials and evaluation of teachers, c) the creation of the National Institute of the Evaluation of Education, d)the creation of the Professional Teaching Service, e) the opening to \u201cautonomous management \u201c of schools, which allows parents to finance and gain control over the schools.
\n 
\nThose changes mean a radical degradation of the working conditions of teachers, in particular through the continuing appointment exams, which were eliminated by previous struggles of the union which won straight security of all appointment. It means the imposition of job insecurity and precarity. But the second damaging aspect is that the reform opens the door of the privatization of public education.
\n 
\nThe CNTE and teachers have never been opposed to accomplish a meaning reform of the education system, as they recognized the real limitations and corruption of the existing one, led by alliance of the government and the bureaucratized labor leaderships. Nor they bluntly reject any form of evaluation if it used to improve education and not to fire teachers – as it is now. The reality is that there are two models or visions for education: that of Pe\u00f1a Nieto and the corporate Mexico, and that defended by the teacher\u2019s education specialist, the students and the working communities. This is the reason of the conflict.
\n 
\n <\/p>\n

The National Coordination of Teachers (CNTE) Fights Back<\/h2>\n

 
\n 
\nThe CNTE has led a continuous struggle against this reform from 2012 on, In particular it organized an unlimited strike on February of 2013 which was met by an authoritarian response from the government which imposed the reform by decree. Then there began a huge way of repression against teachers, including death and new waves of strikes.
\n 
\nThe struggle picked up last year, in 2015, when the government began implementing the evaluation of teachers when new labor actions were taken and the teachers confronted a military like response. Today, the struggle is still open in the air, as neither side has been defeated.
\nIf you want to learn more about the details of the 2013-2015 CNTE struggles, please purchase our little pamphlet in Spanish \u201cLa Reforma Educativa en Mexico.\u201d
\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Francisco Nicol\u00e1s Bravo, Member of the CNTE (National Coordination of Education Workers) in Mexico   \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Pe\u00f1a Nieto\u2019s Anti-Labor Structural Reforms   Pe\u00f1a Nieto\u2019s government has imposed a series of the so-called \u201cstructural reforms\u201d, like a labor reform, an electoral reform, a tax reform and has advanced the privatization of the energy, electricity and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13882120,"featured_media":6973,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[27671],"tags":[29493,28773,29494,29495],"class_list":["post-6972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized-en","tag-education-reform","tag-mexico","tag-saul-lopez","tag-tajamar-canc"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.2","language":"es","enabled_languages":["en","es"],"languages":{"en":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"es":{"title":false,"content":false,"excerpt":false}}},"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdQxqk-1Os","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13882120"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6972\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}