To summarize, there was a teacher's test last week to see which teachers would earn tenured position at public grade schools. Here's what Excélsior said last Monday:
...[O]f the 123,000 that answered the exam, only 25 percent will earn a post as a government teacher, owing to the fact that only 31,000 positions are available, which is to say that close to 92,000 aspirants will not obtain a position affiliated with the SNTE.And here's what the same paper was saying yesterday:
Of the 123,856 aspirants that presented the National Exam for Teaching Ability and Knowledge, only 25 percent passed; which is to say, only 31,086 passed the test satisfactorily so as to obtain a position.Again, unless I'm missing something, three quarters of the would-be teachers had to fail. And, the situation being what it was, three quarters did exactly that. What was going to happen happened. On top of that, the fact that Mexico is even testing its teachers now (which they weren't doing 18 months ago) is a huge step in the right direction. Why all the fuss, then? (And I should add that much of the coverage was far more breathlessly critical than the preceding passage.)
This wasn't a one-off thing, either; people were talking about it everywhere yesterday, and the narrative about the stupidity of Mexico's teaching core anchored into the Mexican psyche a little more deeply thanks to yesterday's coverage. But even beyond the unfairly maligned teachers, all the hand-wringing is a waste of time and an obfuscator of actual problems. Here is an article about how the Senate's committee on education is worried and looking into the matter. Assuming my understanding of the exam is correct, every minute the Senate (or any other institution) spends worrying about this is a minute that they aren't looking at the educational system's genuine obstacles, which are legion. Which is to say, a waste.
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