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| Photo: Yasmin Ortega Cortés |
- In Oaxaca and Michoacán: "Privatization of education is a fact"
- INEE: 8.5 million students at elementary and junior high levels live in marginal poverty
- Schools in several regions survive with student fees paid by parents
- CNTE Teachers: "The struggle is for us and for them"
Every morning, in communities of the Tierra Caliente [Hot Land, along Pacific Coast] and Sierra Zapotec, the same story is repeated:
Daniel Hernández, an indigenous elementary school teacher from the highlands of Oaxaca, notes that there is "resistance" in the poorest communities in the country to the model of teaching that the federal government wants to impose. The parents realize that
"The children arrive at school without breakfast; they are hungry. So as a teacher, what does one do? Well, it might be even finding them a tortilla with salt."
So begins the day for preschool and elementary, indigenous and tele-junior high school [distance learning via Internet] school teachers in Michoacán and Oaxaca. They point out that poverty, violence and lack of employment that their people confront "puts a strain on us in the classroom".
Dozens of multicolored tents provide shelter to about one thousand teachers of the National Coordinating Committee of Education Workers (CNTE), who last Wednesday set up their encampment at the doors of the National Museum of Arts in the Manuel Tolsá Plaza. They say that their students:
"arrive at the classroom just to sit down. They are tired, angry, violent and without eating, but even so we encourage their learning. It's hard, because we lack everything."
Teachers from Apatzingán, Michoacán, and others from the highlands and the Central Valleys of Oaxaca, oppose education reform because they state that in their communities the privatization of education
"is already a fact. All that's needed now is for them to legalize it, because of the support they are asking now from the parents: to pay the light bill, clean the school, fix a toilet or latrine and bring [drinking] water. We teachers provide the educational materials."The National Institute for Evaluation of Education (INEE) reveals that poverty conditions affect at least 8.5 million students in preschool, elementary and secondary [junior high school], who live in communities of high and very high marginalization in the country.
In these locations, just over 124,000 school campuses are located, and all face shortages of infrastructure and equipment. The efforts of 450,000 teachers are required to serve this population, and they must overcome a social context of poverty.
Daniel Hernández, an indigenous elementary school teacher from the highlands of Oaxaca, notes that there is "resistance" in the poorest communities in the country to the model of teaching that the federal government wants to impose. The parents realize that
"their culture is not being rescued; neither their knowledge as indigenous peoples nor the learning their children have. The curricula consider neither their [indigenous] reality nor do they include it as part of the educational project."In this regard, Alfonso López, professor of early childhood education in the Apatzingán Development Center, stated that the fight against the amendments to Articles 3 and 73 of the Constitution is
"not only to defend our rights, which definitely we want to preserve, but we also want society to understand that we are in the streets to defend our own students and parents."
If you do not believe us, he says,
"Read the reform. Analyze the implications, talk with your teachers, know the reality of their schools. Today [parent] contribution is not voluntary. The reform will legalize a model where the resources will come from the pockets of parents."Daniel Hernández stressed that in the case of care for children under three years, we receive the
"little ones, but we ask the mothers to bring milk and bring supplies for the care of their children.
"The state failed to give us resources, and the municipality declared bankruptcy. Without the support of parents, we could no longer care for the children."Hunger and Unemployment
In a community located ten minutes from Apatzingán, one of the most insecure regions in Michoacán, Griselda Hernández is one of two teachers who serve at the Gaby Brimer preschool attended by thirty-five students. She remembers that the construction of the only two classrooms available to the campus
"was the result of the efforts of the parents themselves. What little we have comes from school fees."
Hernández explains that violence in the region has driven away residents and employers.
"Many parents do not have jobs, because the majority are dedicated to working in the lime orchards or construction, but as things are there is no one to give them work, and then neither does the school get resources [school fees]."
"More than two months ago, we requested support for school breakfasts, because children do not always eat, but so far no one has responded," she says.
Under a hot sun that forces dozens of teachers to seek refuge in a sea of tarps and red and blue plastics, Karina Rentería, with seventeen years of teaching service, proudly states that the Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla preschool in the heart of Apatzingán is the result
"of community effort only, because the Secretariat of Education, after years of delay, gave only the official key to the campus."
Since its inception eight years ago,
"we organized to go upgrade the property, which then we paid for, and we even expanded with the purchase of another property paid for by teachers and parents. Even now we cooperate to pay for all services," she states.
However, she recognizes that the school, attended by eighty children, faces grave deficiencies.
"Classrooms are deteriorating, which forces us to give classes in tents. We don't have the best conditions, but we do everything in our power to give a quality education."
A few meters from the entrance to the Museum, near the former site of the Senate, are teachers from Section 22 of Oaxaca. Daniel Hernández remembers passing through the community of San Francisco Yobedo, sixteen hours by car from the capital of Oaxaca. In these communities, he states, time stands still.
"Life goes on as it always has. Schools are constructed from reeds, students without shoes arrive without having eaten. Their subsistence depends on the land, where they grow corn, chile, squash and green beans. There is no work. All their hope for feeding themselves is in the seasonal cornfields.
"During the school year the poor nutrition shows. The only thing that helps these people is that many go as migrants to the United States. When they put together some money, they return, but when the money runs out, they just turn around and go back again.
"The children do not have anything comfortable. There are no beds or a stove in the house. And with those conditions, the children come to school hungry. Many endure, but we try to give them something even if it's just a tortilla with salt, because our task is not only to educate. One also has to be committed to the community and addressing its lacks." Spanish original