Effective engagement with the Teacher Union:
Mexican president Salinas had been correct in deciding to engage the politically powerful teacher-union in negotiations rather than by-passing them altogether (as was done by the Bolivian reformers). 1 That helped Salinas have a good start for his reforms. Bolivian reformers on the other hand, chose to ignore its teacher-unions, leading to stiff opposition to their reform processes and a much slower pace of reform.
Teacher Union power: Teachers were generally the largest proportion of labor force in Latin America. 1. Historically teacher-unions had been involved in nation building efforts in the region. �Throughout the region, Latin America�s teachers were no strangers to national politics�. 1 �Teachers� unions in much of Latin America emerged and grew in strength as part of initiatives to expand the influence of the national state over economic and social affairs� . 1
�In Mexico, for example, the centralization and secularization in 1920s was a cause taken up by school teachers and their incipient organizations. This early history created an enduring legacy of association among the unions, the national ministry of education, and what later to become the PRI (Salinas� political party)�. 1 �The SNTE in Mexico is an extreme example of the connections among them. By the 1990s, this union had been part of the corporatist structure of the PRI for decades.�It mobilized teachers to campaign and vote for PRI candidates. SNTE officials ran for public office, held positions in the ministry of education, and gained power within the PRI.�1 However, by early 1990s SNTE sought to end its relationship with the party because PRI�s power was on the decline . 1 Thus, SNTE was a powerful teacher union, moreover it had some legitimate demands too, as discussed below.
Legitimate Salary increase demands: Mexico� teacher salary levels had diminished over the years, in real terms. In 1993, its teacher salary levels were only about a third of their 1981 salary levels, in real terms .1 � Mexico�s SNTE demanded that teacher salaries be raised by 100 percent, a level at which (they argued) teachers would have recouped the losses they experienced during the 1980s� . 1 However, teacher-unions had strong reasons to oppose decentralization efforts, which curtailed their powers.
Opposition to decentralization:
�Union leaders were clearly concerned that the national unions remain strong and influential and they continue to be interlocutors for teachers with the government�
They were particularly hostile to government initiatives to decentralize education�. 1 Decentralization would reduce the power of the national union and force it to deal with state and municipal bodies on an individual basis , rather than having to deal with only one body � the national government . 1 Thus, in Mexico, SNTE successfully bargained for maintaining the status quo: of keeping the collective bargaining agreements for teacher salaries and teaching conditions at the national level. 1 However, Mexican president Salinas was able to ensure an unopposed process of decentralization for school education � from center to the state, in nearly all other matters.
Nonetheless, he had not sought the willingness of the state governors in the decentralization efforts. This created major problems in implementation of the decentralization process, as discussed in subsequent paragraphs.
Implementation gaffes
Center to the state transfer process- mismanaged:
By and large, the state governors were against the idea of decentralization of the school system. 1 They �feared increased political and administrative burdens with the transfer of responsibility for large numbers of new teachers, schools, and students�. But they were in a weak position.�1 Salinas had two third majorities in the congress and it was �a decision made by a strong president to make the governors accept new responsibilities�. 1 �According to one official in the ministry: �The agreement was signed [by the governors] because Salinas said �Sign!� Many of the governors did not want to touch it�. 1 Thus, problems in implementation were plenty. Decentralization happened quickly. 1 �The reform meant that more than a ha! lf million teachers, more than 100,000 administrators, almost 14 million students, and 100,000 schools would be transferred to states almost overnight�. 1 For most states, their educational responsibilities increased many fold over this short period of time, for which they were ill � prepared �and considerable chaos characterized the transfer of funds, personnel, students and infrastructure�. 1 The reforms had been implemented in almost all the states simultaneously, which created immense problems of managing the reform process. 1 �Many teachers felt orphaned by the changes; problems of implementation were interpreted as evidence of the failure of decentralization; conflicts continued to characterize the management of education; constraints on the use of funds limited the reach of state level reform initiatives; and local participation in the reform initiative was lacking� . 1
Comment: In the implementation phase also the Mexican reformers could have learnt from Bolivia�s reformers (led by Amalia Anaya), which chose to implement their education reforms in a phased manner, initially implementing them in only a quarter of the total municipalities � in the ones � carefully selected as areas where important gains could be made� . 1 In subsequent years, Bolivian reforms continued with this strategy of phased implementation successfully and thus avoided the confusion and lack of accountability experienced by Mexican reformers.
End result in Mexican reforms in education: �at the end of the decade (of 90s), Mexico�s education system remained highly centralized.� 1 �Although state governments were now administering basic and normal education, and municipalities were given the responsibility for construction of schools� . 1 �Curriculum, base salaries and benefits for teachers, most of the funding, standards and criteria for educational achievement � all continued to be determined centrally. The teachers looked to national decision makers to tell them what to teach � and how to teach � and they did not have much leeway for responding to parental demands, even if they were prepared to do so.�1
Conclusion
Mexican education reforms efforts of 1990s, under the leadership of president Salinas were sincere and forceful initiatives. Politically, the reform measures had been sounded out and careful efforts were made to ensure correct timing of the reforms, to ensure least political resistance. However, due to lack of an effective reform design team, the formulation of the details of the reforms was faulty. This resulted in less effective reform strategies whose implementation was even worse, leading to mismanagement and chaos. Mexico could learn much from Bolivia�s effective reform design team led by Amaliya Anaya, which succeeded with the reforms despite constantly fluctuating support from the political leadership of the country.
Bibliography
1. Grindle,M.S ( 2004):- �Despite the Odds- The Contentious Politics of Education Reform;� Princeton University Press.
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