* Bill requires teacher competency exams
* Many teachers favor the reforms
* Teachers’ union leader strongly opposed
By Lizbeth Diaz
MEXICO CITY, Dec 21 (Reuters) – Mexican lawmakers on Friday
approved an education reform bill that aims to rein in the
powerful teachers’ union, which many have blamed for hurting
school quality in Latin America’s second biggest economy.
Lawmakers in the lower house of Congress voted 360 to 51 in
favor of the bill, submitted by President Enrique Pena Nieto
after he took office this month in a move to undercut the power
of the teachers union that had long backed his party.
The reform requires teacher competency exams and merit-based
promotions and chips away at the union’s power to hire teachers
on its own terms.
The education reform is part of a broader pact signed by the
country’s top parties a day after Pena Nieto’s inauguration.
Pena Nieto, 46, returned to power his centrist Institutional
Revolutionary Party, or PRI, after 12 years in the opposition,
promising to push a sweeping reform agenda. No party holds an
outright majority in Congress.
The pact aims to break years of political gridlock and move
forward fiscal and energy reforms to jumpstart the Mexican
economy after decades of sluggish growth.
The education bill, which changes the constitution, must be
approved by a majority of Mexico’s 31 state legislatures.
Mexico’s teachers’ union has more than 1 million members and
is considered Latin America’s biggest union. Its leaders have
for years blocked attempts at education reform while also
influencing the outcome of presidential elections.
Many teachers favor the reforms. Union-controlled jobs can
be passed down through families, and jobs often need to be
bought from the union, teachers interviewed by Reuters said.
But teachers’ union leader Elba Esther Gordillo pledged to
organize opposition. Widely seen as one of Mexico’s most
powerful politicians, she has led the organization since the
late 1980s and her support helped secure former President Felipe
Calderon’s narrow victory over his leftist rival in 2006.
“You do not threaten teachers, you do not tell teachers that
they must comply or you will hurt them,” she said this week.
A former PRI grandee who broke with her old party before the
2006 general election, Gordillo was re-elected in October. Pena
Nieto’s PRI had strong ties with the union during the 71 years
it ruled Mexico before the conservative PAN party ousted it in a
2000 election.
Poor education standards are frequently blamed for holding
back Mexico’s economy. Mexico’s students lag other
industrialized nations, especially in mathematics and science,
according to a 2011 survey by the Organization for Economic
Co-operation and Development.
One educator, who has worked for six years under temporary
contracts without benefits, welcomed the attempt to curb the
union’s power.
“It is all about who you know,” the teacher said, asking not
to be named. “You finish university, you get a masters degree,
you keep up with new studies but if you do not have influence in
the union, the door is shut,” he said.
(Additional reporting by Alexandra Alper and Miguel Gutierrez;
Writing by Michael O’Boyle; Editing by David Gregorio)
