On this occasion I expose and argue some contradictions observed during the process of continuous training organized or induced by the Ministry of Public Education (SEP) and state or local educational authorities (HIM), in the context of the call “curriculum transformation” of the basic education in Mexico (2022-2023).
As background, it should be remembered that during the months of January February of 2022 the SEP announced, -in a strange way because a preliminary document was leaked in social media-, a version of the “Curricular Framework and Study Plan 2022 of Mexican Basic Education”, whose agency responsible for its preparation was the Undersecretary of Basic Education, and specifically the General Directorate of Curricular Development, a text that contained the proposal of “reform” curriculum of the government of President Lopez Obrador.
Although they have been made updates or new versions of the “Curricular Framework…”, the documents that have been published have the character of “preliminaries”, which indicates that there is no consensus, at least within the ranks of the high bureaucracy of the SEP regarding the orientations and the scopes educational Y politicians of the current curricular proposal.
It is not clear whether there are other areas of discrepancy on the contents of the curricular approach and its most visible expression, that is, on the plan and the study programsor for basic education among the members of the second high circle of design: I mean the specialists. The only thing that the SEP makes public is the document in question, it does not give more details of what happens backstage.
In relation to the above, firstly, I consider that the continuous training about the study plan and programs (PyPE) for teachers and school directors of basic education (preschool, primary and secondary), in the scheme of one or 4 days, which takes place this week, it’s no use. Unless the educational authorities, federal and state, bet on the simulation.
In this regard, a first conclusion is that the SEP act backwards to the general principles of continuous training.
What are those generally accepted principles? A program of continuous training and teacher professionalization, beyond simple training and updating, which for teachers and school managers cannot be conceived with training devices (courses or workshops), lasting less than 40 hours. Therefore, the SEP and the state or local educational authorities, today, carry out distortions forms that do not meet, at least, with this criterion of temporality.
According to General criteria of continuous training programs and teacher professional development, and for the assessment of their design, operation and results in basic and upper secondary education, published in the Official Journal of the Federation on May 27, 2022, continuing education programs must meet training targets medium term, not in the short term. Besides, there are a number of considerations that have to do with the contexts, the actors and the contents of the training that we are not going to analyze here.
Regarding continuous training programs and teacher professional development, training programs or programs of this nature, the National Commission for the Continuous Improvement of Education (BestEdu), in the criteria it establishes that this is called (continuing training program) “to the instrument from planning that defines a perspective and a medium-term objective of 6 years, in which thepublic actions that establish the focus, direction and sense to strengthen the practice of teachers”.
The impression remains that, at the SEP and at the request of the president, it is urgent float and quickly the curricular subject in basic education, through microcourses either micro-workshops as a previous step and indispensable to embark on the path towards the incorporation of the textbooks free “updated”, especially for elementary school.
In other collaborations I have referred to this phenomenon of failed strategy of curriculum reformism with an analogy: The federal government and the SEP have been more concerned for the saddle than for the horsethat is, more for the books than for the study plan and programs.
That is the reason why the general director of educational materials, Marx Arriagaserved as the visible head or spokesperson for the SEP, in those events that were called “assemblies”, by the way, controlled and carried out during 2022, where supposedly the curricular framework would be discussed with teachers and school administrators, as well as the plan and programs for renew free basic education textbooks.
chain of inconsistencies
It should be remembered that the party Brunette and then the government of the4T“They did not formulate, in principle, a national educational project consolidated Y consensual with teachers, school administrators and education specialists since the presidential campaign was organized in 2018, since, on the fly and according to what was observed, they only built some ideas around the “education reform” (even without talking about “curricular transformation”). A first outline of it was disclosed in the document called “project 18“, but nothing else.
The clear example of this chain of inconsistencies is the presence from the vague notion of “New Mexican School”which was elaborated on the knees during the negotiations of the reform to the constitutional text, Article 3. (of the right to education), in 2019, with the different political forces, both allies and opposition.
That was done with the intention to place, albeit impromptu, a educational project alternative to those tested by educational reforms, in general, or curricular, in particular, during the previous six-year terms (2000-2018), dominated by the educational public policies neoliberals.
In these days (January 3-6, 2023) in which basic education teachers and school administrators gather to carry out the mini Intensive Workshop on Continuous Training for Teachers: Plan and Study Programs for Basic Education 2022, it would be convenient or desirable that the educational authorities federal and state will respect and adhere to the criteria that the MejorEdu Commission issued just last year.
At last we are still in season to do new Year’s resolutions.
Twitter: @jcma23 | Mail: jcmqro3@yahoo.com