Education in Mexico, as in any other country, is on the one hand, a public service and on the other, a human right that is contemplated in article 3 of the Constitution. It is also established at a conventional level in article 28 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and from article 57 in the General Law of the rights of girls, boys and adolescents. Two years ago – on September 30, 2019 – a new General Education Law was approved and entered into force. This means that all underage persons have the right to education.
Although there is also education for adults and, of course, higher education, which includes the university level, including the doctorate or post-doctorate degree, this article will focus on childhood, that is, on minors and on education pre-university.
Public education, as is known, must be free, secular, inclusive and universal, because it must also be imparted to migrants, regardless of their migratory status.
With a good quality public education and well used by childhood, the magical and inexhaustible world of knowledge opens, and at the same time the possibility of idealizing for each boy and girl their future and destiny in adulthood.
The great challenges that schools have today is to make them a safe place for students, in which family disagreements and ruptures are compensated. Gone is the consideration that at home the values and principles that will be guiding in the life of a girl and boy are taught, because schools are often correcting the lack of guidance and care that exists in some homes.
The saying that the school is to teach and the house to raise is also being overcome. That, therefore, values and principles are learned at home and not at school. Today they go hand in hand and are assimilated in both places. Girls and boys are also reinforced at school that they must be good people. In fact, it is what is taught in some of the classes and in the school curriculum, with another name such as good habits, respect for the rules or the need to have an integral health, but in the end they are taught different values.
Perhaps all this is due to the need to make up for the deficiencies that exist in some homes in which domestic violence prevails and which children experience from a very young age.
Basic education ranges from preschool to high school level. Compulsory education is that which includes initial, primary, secondary and upper secondary education, that is, from kindergarten to high school or its equivalent.
Regarding the education provided by the State, the great challenge over the decades has been that it be of excellence – including this obligation that education be of quality, it was raised to constitutional rank – and that schools They have classrooms that have the furniture and the information technologies necessary to be able to provide the public education service.
Finally, the objective of the educational system is to ensure that all boys and girls, in addition to acquiring knowledge in the various areas of knowledge, find a space in which they develop their personality healthily, have progressive autonomy, and respect their dignity as the guiding axis and Regardless of whether or not they have a disability or learning condition that must be addressed, they can unfold their potential in an environment of trust and peace. Children cannot be discriminated against, harmed or exhibited in any circumstance or situation.
Education given by individuals -in all its types and modalities- with authorization or with recognition of official validity of studies, is also considered part of the public education service.
By law -article 149, fraction III of the General Health Law-, private schools must grant at least 5% of scholarships to the students enrolled in each plan and study program. The purpose of the scholarships is to create conditions of equity among the students.
The scholarships that private schools are obliged to award cannot be conditioned, so schools cannot force them to sign any credit, or even require students to provide their services or are constrained to have some extracurricular activity.
When for whatever reason their parents or guardians do not pay the tuition, the schools should not make this situation visible to their peers, this is dealt with with adults. Children cannot suffer the consequences for something that is out of their reach. Each person is independent of each other. Children should not pay the consequences for other people’s acts.
In addition, as provided by the Constitution, people under 15 years of age in Mexico are prohibited from working. Only after 15 years of age can they do it for 6 hours a day. After the age of 16, they can work with the same rights and obligations as people of legal age.
This means that when the parents or guardians of students under 15 years of age stop paying tuition, they cannot even go out to the labor market to look for work, to pay for their studies, because it is not allowed, therefore, they cannot they must suffer any consequence neither in person nor with their documents for the acts of their parents.
There is one more argument, if schools are also educating students in the aspect of values and principles, then it is contradictory that the report cards or their personal documents display or retain them and, in some extreme cases, not allow students to enter school, when they are not responsible for their parents or guardians to stop paying tuition.
Without going unnoticed that private schools with authorization or recognition of official validity of studies have many expenses to pay and also have the right and freedom to set their tuition fees, but what they cannot do because the last paragraph of the article so provides. 146 of the General Education Law, is neither to retain any document of the child, nor to exhibit or marginalize them for that reason.
In short, private schools can deny re-entry to the following school year to those girls and boys whose parents for whatever reason -usually it is because they cannot- stop paying the tuition fees, if they have the percentage of scholarships already assigned, but not They may retain any personal or academic document due to lack of payment. So, if they are going to another school, they must return their documents and submit their report cards.
In case they refuse to deliver the documents or report cards, they could be credited with a fine that can go from one thousand to seven thousand times the Unit of Measurement and Update.
In any case, private schools are not left in a defenseless state because they have expedited rights to go to court in a timely manner to sue adults for outstanding debts, therefore, children, particularly minors 15 years old, they should not suffer any consequence.
Reference-www.eleconomista.com.mx