Delfina Gómez postponed, for the fourth time, her meeting with Jucopo; opposition urged her to attend

Delfina Gómez Álvarez, head of the Ministry of Public Education (SEP), postponed, for the fourth time, her meeting with the Political Coordination Board (Jucopo) of the Chamber of Deputies, with which the public servant was expected to explain the reasons for the elimination of the School of Time program Complete.

It was on March 23, then April 6 and later on 18 of this month the dates on which the head of the SEP canceled her meeting with Jucopo, despite the urgent need for her assistance in San Lazaro.

The meeting with the coordinators of the seven parliamentary fractions was scheduled for next Monday, April 25, however, Gómez Álvarez canceled, according to legislators from the Coalition Va por México, made up of the National Action Party (PAN), Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD).

Given this, Jorge Romero from Acción Nacional, Rubén Moreira for the tricolor and the perredist Luis Espinosa, urged Gómez Álvarez not to postpone her meeting with Jucopo any longer since it is “an issue of the highest national interest, the official should not bet on the end of the current legislative period in an effort to evade the subject.”

“As popular representatives, federal legislators are mandated to address national priorities and education is one of the greatest, so they will not cease in their efforts to return a program that has demonstrated efficiency and social justice for those who have the least,” they said at a press conference since the Legislative Palace.

However, the opposition coalition stressed that the elimination of the program will affect mothers “who have to work to support their families, and require State support to guarantee the constitutional right to education and the integral development of their sons and daughters”.

On March 1, through the Official Gazette of the Federation (DOF), the operating rules of “The School is Our” were announced, among them the disappearance of full-time schools.

According to AGREEMENT NUMBER 05/02/22, the SEP definitively eliminated Full-Time Schools from its operating rules, but not the benefits of these extended-time schools, which will be subject to the new operating rules.

The resolution came despite the existence of an amparo ordering the guarantee of resources for the program. This was granted in September 2021, after the Eighth District Judge on Administrative Matters of Mexico City granted an amparo in which he ordered the president, legislators and the SEP to guarantee the necessary resources for schools benefiting from the School is Our (LEEN) program.

It should be noted that according to official data, full-time schools provided food to 1.4 million students in addition to supporting mothers who, thanks to the time their children spent in the institutions, were able to get or keep a job.

According to the National Council for the Evaluation of Social Development Policy (CONEVAL), the Full-time Schools program began in 2007 with 441 basic education schools. Of which, 9 per cent were in areas of high marginalization. By 2018, 27,063 schools were registered where 51% were marginalized areas.

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