Marches and Protests Organized by CNTE Paralyze Mexico City, Teachers Demand 'Non Punitive' Evaluations [Hold]

The protests in Distrito Federal, Mexico, will continue indefinitely, after a meeting between legislators and teachers of the National Coordination of Education Workers (CNTE) on August 27 in Mexico City ended without an agreement. It was the first attempt at a dialogue regarding the reforms to education laws being discussed in Mexico's Congress. 

The intense mobilizations that took place in the country's capital started on August 13 after the federal government sent a proposal to Congress that promotes changes in the Law of Professional Education Service, the General Law of Education and the Law for the National Institute for Evaluation of Education (INEE), which regulate the education institutions in Mexico.

The indefinite blockades and protests in various points around D.F. seek to stop the legal initiatives and encourage citizens to join the protests, professor Jimena Vergara Ortega to Red Política. Ortega, who is an academic in the political and social science departmen of UNAM, added that protesters argue that the measures make their jobs uncertain, by enforcing contracts with annual evaluations, permanent supervision to recently hired teachers, rescission of contracts and discretional sanctions by the authorities,

According to CNN, the teachers have said that they're willing to be evaluated, one of the main aspects of the proposal launched by President Enrique Peña Nieto, but they oppose that the evaluation implies that they could be sanctioned with the loss of their jobs. The main reason for this disagreement, they say, is that these measures pretend to evaluate the teachers of all the country without taking into account regional and economic context.

"Not all states have the same social context. In Oaxaca, for example, we have some very marginalized municipalities and in extreme poverty. Then, how can we evaluate a student with advanced malnutrition (in comparison) with a student that lives in a very advanced social context and has all of the technological services at his disposition", said Clemente Jesús García, a teacher in a technical high school to CNN.

Nevertheless, the perception of the capital's citizens regarding the mobilizations doesn't seem to support the teachers, a sector that has been the target of severe criticisms for their performance as educators, despite that in some of the poorest regions of the country, the teachers work in conditions of extreme poverty.

According to a report published in the newspaper El Universal, the Secretariat of Public Education of that country, estimated that the members of the CNTE in Oaxaca (one of the poorest regions of the country), receive 478 days of salary per year, when their school cycle has a duration of 200 days.

In this manner, even if the protesting teachers have obtained some victories during their stay in the D.F., like changing the location and date of the President Enrique Peña Nieto's first State of the Union address, they increasingly face the challenge of garnering support from the population of Mexico's capital. According to information published in newspaper Excélsior, a citizen's movement has summoned a "human chain", to demand the "liberation of the city".

Meanwhile, members of the CNTE have planned a protest in Mexico City's downtown for this Friday, August 30, while the Mexican Popular Coordination (CPM) announced a protest in the west side of the city, on Ignacio Zaragoza avenue.