Hundreds of education specialists have protested the publication and distribution of the free textbooks, claiming the materials indoctrinate children into the government’s ideologies and prevent them from developing necessary skills for adult life
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OPINION By MARK LORENZANA There have been mostly negative reactions to the appointment by Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) of Leticia Ramírez as head of Mexico’s Secretariat of Public Education (SEP), to replace Delfina Gómez Álvarez. Ramírez has not been in her position for more than a couple of days, and already the SEP had presented a “New
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By MARK LORENZANA After heaping praise on Delfina Gómez Álvarez for her tenure as head of Mexico’s Secretariat of Public Education (SEP), Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) in his daily morning press conference on Monday, Aug. 15, officially announced the appointment of Leticia Ramírez to take over the leadership of the SEP. López Obrador assured the audience at the
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By RICARDO CASTILLO Mexican education workers nationwide commemorated Teachers’ Day (Día del Maestros) in many different manners on Wednesday, May15, not excluding expressing their dissatisfaction with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s (AMLO) new education reform, which was fully approved by Congress during the day. AMLO said he’d sign the law immediately so it can be published on Thursday, May 16,
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By RICARDO CASTILLO Every May 15, Mexico commemorates Teachers’ Day. But the festivities – celebrated at every school – public or private – by the millions of students, parents, labor unions, communities and government branches, who pamper teachers that day (even if it is just once a year), may turn out in 2019 to be different from what we’ve had
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By RICARDO CASTILLO Suddenly – but not unexpectedly – the once-powerful National Education Workers Union (SNTE) leader Elba Esther Gordillo is back on track to regain the presidency of Mexico’s two-million-member-strong union, the largest in all Latin America. During the administration of former Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto (2012-2018), Gordillo was thrown in the slammer on several charges, including embezzlement
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By THÉRÈSE MARGOLIS After holding a massive two-day protest outside Mexico’s San Lázaro Congressional Palace earlier in the week (which forced Chamber of Deputies President Porfirio Muñoz Ledo to suspend all sessions until Tuesday, March 26) and meetings on Thursday, March 21, with representatives of both the Education Secretariat and the Interior Secretariat (Segob), leaders of the nation’s militant National
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By RICARDO CASTILLO Everyone was expecting a second upstaging of Mexican President-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador by the former teachers’ union leader Elba Esther Gordillo on Sunday, Aug. 19, and Monday, Aug. 20. The first upstaging came on Aug. 8, when Elba Esther was exonerated by a judge of all charges that had kept her a prisoner in a federal
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By RICARDO CASTILLO A major theme among candidates in the ongoing Mexican presidential electoral campaign is the huge political squabble over education. And it seems only natural that education be the top topic of discussion since today Mexico celebrates the 100th anniversary of the declaration of Teachers’ Day or “Día del Maestro.” It was conceived during the drafting of the historic 1917
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