Committed to defending the constitutional right to quality education, Mexican union SNTE is gearing up for a campaign to halt the spread of for-profit private education in the country.
In line with Education International (EI)’s Global Response to the privatisation and commercialisation in and of education, the Sindicato National de Trabajadores de la Educación (SNTE), EI’s affiliate Mexican, has launched its own national campaign demanding that education be public, secular, free and compulsory.
During the kick-off event in Guanajuato’s Juarez theatre last Saturday, 23 January, SNTE President Juan Díaz de la Torre reminded those in attendance that “article 3 of the Constitution marks the provision of education as one of the key social guarantees that the State has to provide”.
The union has been monitoring the tendency towards the commercialisation of education by some who, “albeit few, are economically powerful and seeking to make business on behalf of education”, said de la Torre. “But public education is owned by all Mexicans. Those who see a source of money in it shall not overcome,” he warned.
The program, which is going to run for one year, will include conferences, workshops, video screenings, a mobile museum, writing contests, children’s drawing contests, publications and a special edition of the Political Constitution of Mexico.