Federico Reyes Heroles
“I address these lines to you, loving and wise mother, who have known how to stray from the worn path and preserve the young sapling…” Rousseau was among the first to see this clearly. A nation’s wealth lies beyond gold and silver. True wealth is born of education. An educated country, even without oil or minerals, will thrive. To despise education is to despise the nation.
The most serious aspect of the farce of recent days is witnessing the parade of utter improvisation and cynicism, of contempt for education. If any public policy requires continuity, it is education.
Emerging from the Revolution, Mexico was an illiterate country. José Vasconcelos, alongside Obregón, grasped the importance of the issue, and the Ministry of Public Education was created. But our beloved Mexico has a devilishly rugged terrain. That is why Manuel Ávila Camacho decided to create an agency dedicated to building classrooms; his secretary at the Ministry of Public Education was none other than Jaime Torres Bodet. All belonged to the “power mafia.” López Mateos tasked another mafia member, Martín Luis Guzmán, with creating the Free Textbooks program so that the materials would also serve as an equalizing factor. The first edition consisted of 16 million books, and the famous covers featured images by Montenegro or Siqueiros; ideology was the least of their concerns.
Although they were from the same party, the competition was fierce: greater coverage—elementary, middle, and high school. More universities. In presidential reports, this progress was a touchstone. The country was growing and allocating resources accordingly. Echeverría, in a fit of madness—common for him—decided to multiply the budget stratospherically. But education does not advance in leaps and bounds. The intention was sound, but first it was necessary to train the teachers, evaluate them, and assess the students. Slowly, the goals were achieved: 100% or nearly so in primary school, secondary school barely reaching that level, and upper secondary school with challenges. Alternative systems were created to accommodate the youth. Zedillo, with Miguel Limón at the helm, introduced measures to curb union overreach. Vicente Fox created the Institute for Educational Evaluation (INEE) to provide an external body to shed light on the path forward. There we were.
But then the Fourth Transformation arrived, and the destruction began. Right off the bat, the INEE was left as a shell; full-time schools were sent to the grave; and what can be said about early childhood education, which we now know is a central element in the holistic development of the student? Equipping schools is not a closed file, which is why the Coca-Cola-FEMSA program to bring water to educational facilities—around 1,000 that lack it — is so relevant. Hygiene for everyone, but especially for adolescent girls who are just beginning their menstrual cycles, depends on having the conditions to achieve it. The use of computers and tablets is quite a dilemma.
But beyond speculation, the data is clear. OECD countries spend an average of $12,000 per student per year. Mexico spends less than $3,000, and the figure is falling. PISA is flashing all its red lights: science, math, and reading scores are in decline. Spending on Science and Technology: 0.16% by 2025. But of course, Pemex loses 2.1 billion pesos a day, and the fiscal cost of fuel theft hovers around 600 billion pesos. Coverage, for the first time in our country’s modern history, is in free fall. The same goes for dropout rates: elementary school, 2.8%; middle school, 7.5%; high school, 11.3%. As a result, productivity will not rise, and worse still, social mobility will cease. Of the children of parents with only an elementary school education, fewer than 1 in 10 will go on to higher education (CEEY). The incomes of around 75% of the population will change very little.
The World Cup is coming! Why not cut school days by more than 12%—in violation of federal law?
Only one match will be during the day. Why not make it a holiday?
Poor working mothers, poor students.
Poor Mexico.
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