07172015Fri
Last updateMon, 13 Jul 2015 11am
Unique Consignment

No u-turn on teacher evaluations, president vows

Speaking in Guadalajara this week, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto  vowed to “push ahead” with the national teacher evaluation program in a bid to improve the nation’s flagging educational standards.

“It’s a model that benefits everyone, teachers and students the same, and for this reason we will not be turning back,” Peña Nieto said at the start of the 16th Virtual Education Encounter at Expo Guadalajara, an international event sponsored by the Organization of American States (OAS) and held in a different country each year.

The president was criticized last month after suspending the timetable for teacher evaluations in the run-up to the June 7 national elections.  Members of the dissident Coordinadora Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educacion (CNTE) had blocked highways and ransacked election offices across several states in an attempt to disrupt the elections.

The program was reinstated after his Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) won a slim majority in the election for the federal Chamber of Deputies.

The dissident teachers object to the testing program saying it discriminates against members with fewer resources in poorer states, such as Michoacan, Oaxaca and Chiapas, and violates labor rights.  

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