Performance-based education reform benefits teachers, students: Mexican president

Mexico's education reform enacted in 2013 does not punish anyone, but provides high-quality education thanks to teacher evaluations, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto said Wednesday.

During a scholastic awards ceremony in a school, he defended the education reform as "noble" and "generous," saying that the reform awards teachers with better salaries if they prepare their classes well.

The president said that teachers who do not pass their evaluations will not be fired but rather reassigned to administrative positions.

Pena Nieto said that the reform has three pillars: better-prepared teachers, an education model that is consistent with reality and modern educational spaces.

He said that by 2018, it was expected that there would be 33,000 schools nationwide in good condition.

Referring to the issue of teachers' training and education, Pena Nieto said that the government would continue to create facilities so that the teachers would continue to be trained through the evaluations, better getting to know their weaknesses and strengths and working on them.

However, not everyone is in favor of the reform. The National Coordination of Education Workers (CNTE), composed of teachers, opposes the reform as its members believe it affects their interests and they have called for the reform's abolition in the last several months.

Meanwhile, the National Syndicate of Education Workers (SNTE) has begun a rapprochement with the educational authorities in the country. Pena Nieto has expressed the need to revise the reform, mainly when it comes to teachers undergoing the evaluations. Endi