CNTE-affiliated teachers in Oaxaca are set to march again.
The union’s Oaxaca local, Section 22, announced it would suspend classes in the state’s seven regions today through Wednesday, closing schools in 800 locations.
But more job action will follow in two weeks.
The Oaxaca state assembly of Section 22 said classes will also be canceled February 25, 26 and 27 for a massive three-day mobilization in Mexico City.
Teachers are once again protesting against their old scourge — education reform.
They are demanding the repeal of former president Enrique Peña Nieto’s education reform, charging that President López Obrador’s new education law doesn’t go far enough.
“We aren’t going to stop demanding the repeal of the so-called education reform,” said a union official.
Spokesman Santiago Valdivieso said the president’s proposed constitutional amendment fell far short of his organization’s expectations.
“Everything seems to indicate that this is nothing more than a change so that everything stays the same.”
He said the proposal has the same focus as the previous administration’s education reform on certification, student teaching, professional evaluations and bilingual education, a vision he called “corporate” and “colonialist.”
The president’s initiative would amend the constitution and disband the National Education Evaluation Institute (INEE), which has been widely perceived as a punitive institution. The president has said the new reform would “recognize the function of the teaching profession and . . . establish positive incentives and evaluation.”
The form of the protests, whether marches or encampments, will be outlined in detail at a CNTE organizational planning meeting.
The union has been marching against the reforms since they were introduced in 2013, shutting down the state on several occasions with state-wide highway blockades and other protests.
The same union is currently protesting in Michoacán, claiming billions of pesos in unpaid wages and bonuses. It has shut down all railroad freight for nearly four weeks.
Source: NVI Noticias (sp), El Financiero (sp)
