Breathe
By Nurit Martínez, investigative reporter specializing in education for two decades; she writes for OEM/El Sol de México and teaches at UNAM.
The campaign promise of the Fourth Transformation to achieve free higher education and expand educational opportunities in Mexico became a hot potato among six secretaries of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's government: three from the Ministry of Public Education and three from the Treasury and Public Credit.
A technical document presented by the SEP prior to the approval of the 2023 budget before the Treasury, and then the exclusion of the emergency fund to start the free education process, showed that no one wants to be financially responsible for this campaign promise.
But this is not the only thing, higher education also suffers from the disdain of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who incites student movements for political purposes under the argument of "democratizing the forms of government" of the institutions, leaving aside the principles of autonomy.
Just a week ago in his morning conference, the president insisted once again on the need to democratize the schools as much as possible and although he said that the federal government cannot get involved in this issue out of respect for autonomy, "he does encourage movements within the universities that were very subdued, movements for democracy, for transparency, for there to be no corruption, for there to be no bosses".
And he has reiterated this discourse on at least seven occasions in the last two years in which he questioned the way in which the rector of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) is elected. This is well ahead of the process that will take place between October and November of this year, at the end of Enrique Graue's term.
But beyond the criticisms related even to those who participated in the corruption cases in the Master Swindle, for López Obrador and the Fourth Transformation, the country's universities have not been the focus of attention.
This leads to the fact that actions to make possible a true reform of higher education are in oblivion. The reform at this level, unlike basic education, is focused on the capacity and budgetary availability of the State to face labor precariousness, address the problem of pension funds, invest in the deteriorated infrastructure, build more spaces to increase opportunities for all and cancel any enrollment and fee charges.
In August 2018, the then president-elect emerged from the National Regeneration Movement, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, got the attention of young people after pledging that all those who conclude high school should enter universities without requirements and in doing so should not have to pay enrollment and fees.
In the September meeting of that year, with the rector of the UNAM, Enrique Graue, he ratified his interest in these two issues, in addition to the denunciations of violence against women.
But from that moment, when he visited the facilities of the National Association of Universities and Higher Education Institutions (ANUIES), until now he has not had a single minute in his day to meet with rectors, let alone with university students to address an agenda that focuses on the funding crisis of the institutions.
Despite the legal reform promoted by his government, so far it is only a reengineering to define those responsible for processes, but it has not meant addressing the central issues of financing that prevent the promised free education from being achieved due to budgetary "forgetfulness" or "disdain", nor has the financial crisis of the institutions been resolved.
The dream of the left of the 1970s was seen with possibilities in the constitutional reform of 2019: the mass university, that is, universal and free, but five years later it is on standby.
During this period, this commitment has remained in the midst of budgetary entanglements and bureaucratic tangles: requests come and go, secret meetings, official letters, studies, projections, and there is nothing to address them.
Meanwhile, every year 300,000 young people are rejected from public institutions, according to SEP's own calculations. The system has this deficit of spaces per year, which cancels the aspirations of social mobility of this number of women and men. Although it is known that some will try up to five times to enter university, a significant proportion will cancel their hopes.
Each year there is only room to integrate 1.5 million young people to the university level and the total enrollment at that level is almost 5 million. This is the size of the budgetary challenge.
Republican austerity and then Franciscan poverty, imposed from the National Palace, were only the prologue to a crisis that was aggravated by the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Today, alerts are being raised in a little more than 200 public institutions that serve 80 percent of the national enrollment and where the political responsibility for non-compliance lies.
The rectors of these universities, as good political actors, many of them with aspirations to occupy elected positions, have sent signals of concern and even mobilization because they do not want to bear the cost of these unfulfilled promises.
There are those who consider that perhaps it is too early to start talking about the transforming government's non-compliances, but the truth is that in the financial projections there is more than evidence, the priority is to attend to the presidential projects with millionaire investments: the Mayan Train, Dos Bocas and to make the Felipe Angeles International Airport work as fast as possible.
SEP's financial projections indicate that for each student that joins the university level, the Federation requires 54 thousand pesos.
If this issue had been addressed from the first year, it would have cost no more than two billion pesos, which was a small pinch to the investment in the three infrastructure projects.
For 2023 the estimated cost is around ten billion pesos, but that was not originally assigned by the Treasury, despite the fact that the SEP is trying to save the political scratch and insists that they did request it.
Only that in these years the secretaries Esteban Moctezuma, then Delfina Gómez and Leticia Ramírez did not even have in the speech, as a priority, higher education to face what was set as a goal for 2024.
The task, inherited from the interest of President López Obrador, has been to reverse an educational reform at the basic levels and not to damage the relationship with the sector with which he has an electoral alliance: the teachers in basic education.
There is today the teacher Delfina Gómez at the head of the gubernatorial candidacy in the State of Mexico, after using the agency as a springboard for Morenista purposes orchestrated from the National Palace, but in alliance with the teachers' union to put an end to the 80 year old PRI system in the State of Mexico.
Giving all young people access to the university system and doing so free of charge also requires a substantial investment in infrastructure, laboratory equipment, workshops and internet, as well as the hiring and training of teaching and support staff.
Clearly, two years and limited budgets suggest that in order to achieve the reform in higher education, it will require a feat that so far has no reference in Mexico.
The opinions expressed are the responsibility of the authors and are absolutely independent of the position and editorial line of Opinion 51.
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