Faced with an education reform that aims to end guaranteed teaching positions and plunge the teacher ranks into job insecurity, the National Coordinating Committee of Education Workers (CNTE) will promote an alternative education proposal in which
"we are committed to educational innovation, quality, evaluation and better performance in the classroom, but with a completely different vision from the neoliberal model," union leaders said.The teachers warned that in the absence of agreements between the State Coordinating Committee of Education Workers of Guerrero (CETEG) and the state Congress to approve the amendment to the State Education Act, Francisco Bravo, secretary general of the dissident teachers of Section 9 of the Federal District [Mexico City] said,
"We will remain vigilant regarding the negotiations; an alert has been given. If there is repression, we will mobilize in more than twenty states."He added that next week, several state union sections will convene forums and teacher congresses to discuss an alternative education project, in which will they will shape
"the objectives we will pursue in order to improve the education provided in the classroom, but also to strengthen the role of the teacher as a real agent of social change."In a separate interview, Juan Melchor, a member of the National Political Directorate of CNTE and of Section 18 in Michoacán, stressed that the call to all the contingents of dissident teachers is to join a national mobilization on May first,
"that is not [just] commemorative [of International Workers Day]. It has to do with the search for unity and strength to defend what still remains of a nation against the imposition of a neoliberal model in education, health and employment."They agreed that next week the CNTE will concentrate on the organization of its National Congress, to be held from April 25th to 27th in Mexico City, but warned,
"we will not stop insisting to the federal government that it commit itself to honest and open dialogue regarding the educational reform, and that it avoid the temptation to rush the approval of the secondary laws [implementing the approved constitutional changes], because we insist, not everything has been said."Spanish original