Posted by .hj barraza in 
LucÃa GodÃnez/EL UNIVERSAL
1. Vazques & Gordillo meet
On this weeks happenings, always scary Elba Esther Gordillo, Leader of the Mexicans teachers Union, and self proclaimed Queen of Omicron Persei VIII (not really) joined Josefina Vazques Mota, Secretary of Education in a traditional assembly of the scholar cycle startup.now for those who are not very updated on such topics, Gordillo and Vazques don’t have a very friendly relationship which makes they roles even more interesting.At the end of the event, journalist approached Gordillo who was guarded by her personal security team and a human wall of people to claimed to be “teachers”. When questioned about her relationship with Vazques and if they have allready made “peace” she replied:
Peace? I don’t have to make peace with no one.
During her speech, Vazques invited Parents to get involved in the schools processes and announced that the Ministry of Education is working on new National Education Program and will be open to proposals from the Education Community.She added that they are aware that the Mexico is longing for a Education System of higher quality, that’s why they working to get better course materials and invest on infrastructure. (lets hope she gets better results that her predecessor Tamez). El Universal has a complete story
2. More Lost Money MEX$1,000,000,000
PRI denounced more irregularities in several of the main projects of former President Fox, two of them aimed education:
- a) The already unpopular Enciclomedia (undisclosed amount) mostly requesting to re assess the spending on IT and course materials, this being Microsoft’s office and Encarta and the software to run the encyclopaedia itself.
- b) Library José Vasconcelos (132,774 millions) under the audition number 05-1-11L6M-04-554
3. New Record on Scholarships
On happier news, the Federal Government broke a new record giving 1,200,000 scholarships surpasing the expected amount of 7.5 million during the next 6 years with a total amount of 900 millions mexican pesos.Well this sure puts us again in the countries that invest the most of Federal Budget in Education, if at least the education system have any results, we will be on the other side.I’m very happy to hear this since during last government more than 95% of the education budget went to the producers (teachers led by you-know-who) and barely 5% in scholarships.
4. We started with no plan
And finally, we start up this years cycle with no education plan at all. Now I’m not sure if this is bad or not, Vazques being the first woman since i remember to led the Ministry of Education, is also the first one to start with no plan.After seeing last efforts results, it seems to me that the rush to develop such plans in order to suffice a due date, rather than a long term strategy might end up in hollow plans or not very well developed.so lets hope that the reason that Vazques hasn’t announced her plan is because they really want to make it right this time.