Ghost Mexican teachers in Mexico
In this link to an article in Mexico News Daily on Mexican teachers, this article notes the deeply ingrown problem in Mexico’s official government education. Because the government pays whomever the local teacher’s union says is a teacher, there is no real link between the government (who pays salaries) and the actual schools. As the union has taken over in Oaxaca state, they have many teachers that are just not even there. They charge a salary for teaching, but they have never stepped in a classroom in their entire life except as a student. They have no educational training either. They are just free-loaders living off of the system, receiving a good salary because of their connections with the teacher’s union.
This phenomena has implications in various directions. First of all, the needed teachers for the children of Oaxaca are just not there. Those that are there must stretch to cover for those that get paid, but never are even assigned a classroom. Secondly, normal Mexican teachers makes very little money, and these ghost teachers make sometimes 10 to 15 times what a normal teacher would make. Moreover, the corruption that undermines this is horrible. In order to maintain their control over the situation, the teacher’s union has to strike regularly, and many years the students cannot graduate because they didn’t attend class the minimum. But beyond that, the regular (real Mexican teachers) are extorted in the sense that they have to support these strikes and marches in Mexico City (8 hours away) in other to make a big splash for the Union.
If they do not attend (sleeping on the ground usually in a park in Mexico City) then they do not get loans, special benefits, and extra money. Life as usual in Mexico.