news

Also in this section:

Torrijos order exempting education fund checks from controls set off massive theft
Balbina, anti-corruption czarina campaign with public funds

School curriculum row

Despite government-financed campaign, Dixon loses bid for ICC bench

San Carlos development hit with huge fine
Panama News Briefs

School curriculum changes
draw teacher unions' ire
by Eric Jackson

On November 7 President Torrijos signed two decrees, numbers 351 and 365, which as of the school year that begins next March would change the curriculum for Panama's public and private elementary and middle schools. If they are taken literally these presidential orders would be so far-reaching as to renege on the PRD's celebrated but largely incohate efforts to establish bilingual education in the indigenous comarcas and to impoverish the breadth of instruction at the private schools where rich kids go, but it appears that this is just a matter of poor drafting rather than the president's intent. What definitely is intended includes severe cuts in the teaching of the fine arts, ethical and religious values, history and physical education, along with a narrower occupational tracking system. The measures imply serious cuts to educational budgets and teachers' unions and those studying to become teachers are not amused.

Decree 351 sets the curriculum for "non-regular" schools while Decree 365 does the same for "regular" ones, both measures purporting to apply to both public and private schools.

The "non-regular" schools, which include the great majority of those in rural areas and the adult education programs, would have an "hour" of instruction defined as 45 minutes and in the first six grades would limit the subjects of study to Spanish, social studies, mathematics and the natural sciences, with courses in "labor training" in fifth and sixth grades. In grades 7 through 9 there would be two hours of instruction per week in "technologies" that include Family & Community Development, Agriculture, Industry, Business, and Computers, these subjects to be taught by teachers specialized in those areas. There would also be instruction in history, geography, ethics, labor relations and English in these grades, although reduced from current levels in most cases. Physical education and the arts are eliminated entirely.

In the "regular" schools English, the fine arts, ethics and religion and physical education would be taught in grades 1 through 9, but without specialized teachers in the first six grades. History instruction would be reduced. In the fine arts the reduced instruction would be divided into music and art, but the students' performances in those classes would be combined in a single lump-sum grade, so that a brilliant but tone-deaf young painter or a musical prodigy who can't draw a straight line would receive mediocre grades and remain officially unidentifiable. The regular schools would have the same fields of study in the "technologies" as the non-regular ones, plus that of "Artistic Expressions," in grades 7 through 9. There would only be three "technologies" permitted per school, and in the industrial sector only one trade would be permitted per school.

Given that Panama's public universities have imposed an English-proficiency exam for prospective students --- a test that has drastically reduced the number of students accepted, and has thus functioned as a de facto higher education cut --- the "non-regular" schools' backtracking on the government's prior commitment to teach a second language at all levels of education would effectively mean that even fewer rural kids will be in a position to get a higher education. Decree 365 implies that Panama City's largest and oldest vocational high school, Artes y Oficios, would be broken up. The two decrees combined imply both layoffs of teachers and a confused scramble for remaining teaching assignments in the public schools.

In a November 13 memo sent out by the Ministry of Education pursuant to the November 7 decrees, all schools were required to adopt a new curriculum, assign each student to an occupational track and have all this approved by the ministry's regional offices by November 23, which by and large has not been done.

There is bad blood between the Torrijos administration and the teachers' unions, to the extent that the former has created a paper Teachers' Unity Coordinator (CUM) with whom to talk instead of with the organized teachers, who have four major unions that are allied in the Teachers Action Front (FAM). It appears, however, that the decrees were issued without even consulting the PRD-dominated CUM, but are instead the result of prescriptions written abroad by international lenders, in particular by the World Bank-supported Latin American and Caribbean Education Reform Program (PREALC).

Alex Hernandez, a teacher and member of the Veraguas Educators Association's (AEVE's) curriculum study committee, denounced Education Minister Belgis Castro as "lacking the scientific knowledge to understand the subject of education," noted that his union's communications with the ministry have been ignored and claimed that the educational reforms promoted by PREALC have failed all across Latin America "because they don't relate to the real contexts of our countries."

A meeting of the Veraguas Student Movement passed a resolution complaining that "the neo-liberal ideal is citizens who are mere laborers and consumers, who are uncritical and unreflective about our reality, without social, national or cultural identity, who are simple robots in service to a country with a completely privatized society and economy."

The Teachers Association of Panama (ASOPROF) denounced Decrees 351 and 365 and warned that there could be a strike over them. Now, in the final weeks of the 2007 school year, is an inopportune time for anything more than a token teacher walkout and the Torrijos administration apparently hopes that by the start of the next school year the changes will be in place. However, on November 27 AEVE members disrupted a meeting of national and regional Ministry of Education officials in Santiago and warned of further "peaceful resistance" to come.

Neither President Torrijos nor the Ministry of Education have had much to say about the school curriculum decrees. Their primary attention has been on the Educational Quality and Equity Fund embezzlement scandal (they say they will take "determined action" to deal with it), but ministry spokesman Héctor Donadío did tell a reporter for La Prensa that the changes represent "a modernization of education."

Also in this section:

Torrijos order exempting education fund checks from controls set off massive theft
Balbina, anti-corruption czarina campaign with public funds

School curriculum row

Despite government-financed campaign, Dixon loses bid for ICC bench

San Carlos development hit with huge fine
Panama News Briefs