Judge and party in the dispute over control of the public subsystem of technological institutes, the SNTE —through section 61— has threatened a national strike in the 254 establishments, dispersed in the 32 states, if the SEP appoints a director generally “alien”.
A month ago, at the end of the school year, Enrique Fernández Fassnacht had resigned from that position and the members of that section of the teachers’ union, headed by Carlos Arturo Méndez Chaparro, celebrated as if it had been their merit. And perhaps, because the instruction of a relay in the TecNM came from the office of the secretary Delfina Gómez Álvarez.
Conflicted with a score of directors of the federalized schools —the subsystem is made up of 121 decentralized schools and 133 dependent on the central offices—, the SNTE had requested the dismissal of Fernández Fassnacht, who had come out of retirement —he was general director of the Polytechnic between 2014 and 2017—to accept the invitation of Undersecretary Luciano Concheiro to direct this subsystem, which concentrates more than 30,000 teachers and 616,000 students.
Faced with the vacancy, the undersecretary of higher education opened an audit that would have favored Hermenegildo Lagarda Leyva, director of international affairs in that unit. The SNTE would have supported Rocío Barrios, collaborator of the head of the Administration and Finance Unit of the SEP, Óscar Flores Jiménez.
And the secretary, Delfina Gómez Álvarez? The final decision was made at the National Palace and the direction of Mexico’s technological institutes will be entrusted to the former capital deputy Ramón Jiménez López, who would meet the capacities that section 61 demanded of the federal Executive and the head of the SEP in an open letter, in eve of the appointment, a week ago.
“It must be a responsible, capable and prepared person, with vast experience in technological education”, conditioned the general secretary of that union section, “when people outside the subsystem have been appointed, the National Technological Institute of Mexico has had serious setbacks” .
Jiménez López studied at ESIME-IPN and taught applied mathematics at the Escuela Superior de Economía and Cinvestav. In addition to his academic background, he has a long history on the partisan left; He was a union leader, national president of the Alliance of Social Organizations and director of the PPS and the PRD-DF.
His legislative performance — twice a CDMX deputy and once a federal deputy — and his time in the capital government, as director of the RTP system, always kept him in the first Lopez circle.
The SNTE will not be able to boycott the arrival of Jiménez López at the TecNM… unless it questions the most controversial part of his resume: for 15 years he has headed the Mexican Committee on Kimilsunism, dedicated to the study of the doctrine implanted by Kim Il -sung in North Korea in the mid-20th century.
Side effects
COMPLETE CAR. The information on election Sunday flowed in real time on different platforms. Nielsen IBOPE reported that ForoTV’s special broadcast reached 2.2 times more viewers than its closest competitor, while N+ achieved a 60% growth in the number of users of the new streaming news channel. And Nmas.com.mx recorded a significant audience peak on Sunday, with a 138% increase in sessions and 141% in unique users.
IMPERTINENCES. Loyalty and discretion are two sine qua non requirements for senior managers in public administration. But the head of the Treasury Secretary’s Office, Carlos Lerma, defied those rules and did not resist the temptation to leak Altán Redes’ restructuring plan.
Journalist
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Journalist and columnist for El Economista, author of Doña Perpetua: Elba Esther Gordillo’s power and opulence. Elba Esther Gordillo against the SEP.