A Somewhat More Serious Example of the Lack of Professionalism in Mexico's Educational System

An NGO called Mexicanos Primero issued a report saying that there are 17,000 public school teachers, all of them drawing paychecks paid by taxpayers, who are not actually teaching, but are actually assigned to administrative posts inside the teacher's union, the SNTE. Some of these teachers are actually collecting checks for up to four different posts, say the authors. This kind of thing, while alarming, is not unusual in Mexico. However, what is slightly more worrying is that the SEP reported to Congress that the number of such teachers was just over 10,000. In fact, it seems to be 70 percent higher, so either the SEP is lying, or no one has a good sense of who is where, nor, consequently, how much the confusion is costing the Mexican state.