MEXICO CITY – Mexico’s No. 2 official said the government had resumed talks with the militant CNTE teachers union and proposed negotiations on the country’s current educational model, EFE news agency reported.
In a brief televised message, Government Secretary Miguel Angel Osorio Chong said Wednesday July 6 that in recent days the government had responded to the CNTE’s roadblocks and other protest measures by both seeking to defuse the situation and ensure the right to demonstrate while also safeguarding the rights of all Mexicans.
He said that approach had led to the resumption of dialogue.
A new meeting was held on Tuesday in which the CNTE teachers submitted a document with their proposals and the government “delivered its alternative solution in writing.”
The CNTE leaders asked for time to discuss the government’s proposals with the union’s rank and file, according to the government secretary, who said that on July 11 the two sides would analyze the points of agreement that “allow us to normalize the situation shortly.”
Inteior Secretary Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong (third from right) is meeting with teachers union representatives in Mexico City. (PHOTO: elhorizonte.mx)
The teachers once again demanded the repeal of a 2013 education overhaul that includes regular evaluations of education and ends longstanding union privileges.
The union, which is strongest in Oaxaca, Michoacan, Chiapas and Guerrero, Mexico’s poorest states, says the evaluations are punitive because they fail to take into account that schools in rural areas often lack electricity and even textbooks.
The CNTE also called for the release of two jailed union leaders and a pledge from the government not to retaliate against educators who have attended demonstrations instead of teaching their classes.
The government has said it is willing to listen to the CNTE, but the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, administration of President Enrique Peña Nieto has repeatedly stressed that the 2013 law is non-negotiable.
On Tuesday afternoon, around 4,000 CNTE-affiliated teachers and their supporters marched in Mexico City to demand a resumption of dialogue with federal authorities.
Source: latino.foxnews.com via EFE
