Job Discussion Forums

[reddevil79]

Can't remember her name, but looks like she's no longer there, according to the website at least...

[ton a bricks]

The Oaxaca political situation also has been a cause for the location of the universities outside of Oaxaca City. The UABJO, the principal public university in the state, has been famous as a bastion of ultra left politics during the social unrest that has rocked Oaxaca over the past thirty or forty years. Oaxaca has no cities of 200,000 population, Tuxtepec and Juchitan have over 100,000 but they are the largest after Oaxaca.

The Spanish born rector of the Suneao system has been highly alligned with the repressive government of Oaxaca that has wanted to cut funding to the UABJO and divert it to schools that would not support a "radical" role for education, but that also would avoid politics in general. The Suneo teachers do not have unions, nor even associations.

While the quality standards of the unversity are high, the number of students graduating is very low, since they are not prepared previously to meet such high standards. Those who do manage to graduate also have difficulty entering master's programs because, despite their quality education, their marks are too low to be accepted in "quality" master's programs.

The funding of public education in Mexico is a federal jurisdiction. The fact that there are numerous small universities across Oaxaca state means that lots of government funding is directed to places that can be "outposts" of a system that has supported a recently unseated despotic PRI state govt. The numbers of students that graduate that actually can contribute to local development is quite insignificant, in reality those who do graduate either leave, open cyber cafes or maybe occassionally are able to find some business activity. But in terms of generally contributing to expanding local opportunities, the main thing it does is to siphon off funding that would otherwise go to expanding and improving educational quality and quantity in the major UABJO university.

Oaxaca is one of, if not the poorest state in Mexico. Having an elite university system that is far removed from much of that reality seems like a dubious response to social problems. But it does provide decent jobs to teachers who then are indirectly supporting channeling resources to programs that probably rarely benefit the mass of poor living in the state.

[MotherF]

Ton a bricks,

Thanks for your thoughtful post on the subject--I remember reading the news article that you must have read too making most of the same points. I looked for it online now but could not locate it.

I think the most important thing people tend to forget about the SUNEO system is its age. The project as a whole is just twenty years old, but the majority of the universities in the system are much newer than that. Some have not even had a graduating class yet, so it's hardly fair to make such sweeping judgements as to whether or not the system is contributing to local development. Most of the users of this forum come from countries where Oxford and Harvard are held up as ideals. How can you possibly compare something that is less than twenty years old to that? I also know that as a parent from my background, I would be weary of sending my child to a university that was less than ten years old. But then--there are no parents of SUNEO students like me--people with degrees from institutions founded in the 1800s. The vast majority of the students enrolled in SUNEO universities really only had two other options--possibly the UABJO or not going to university at all.

And what about the UABJO, while it is true that the SUNEO universities are set up in a way to keep politics out of the university--if you have ever had close contact with UABJO you wouldn't think that is a bad thing. The position of Rector of the UABJO is an elected position and the news I saw about the internal election was way nastier than anything I saw in the state governor's race. I also know a professor in the Facultad de Ciencias there and internal fighting and back stabbing has completely crippled its development. I have a friend who is now working at the Universidad Autonama del Estado de Mexico and his stories are very similar. I'm not saying that the UABJO should not be developed nor invested in--as far as I know the SUNEO system never intends to develop such a wide range of majors as the UABJO has so there will always be a place for both institutions in the State. But UABJO is a seriously corrupt institution and change is very hard. I think it was Gustavo Esteva who said that changing the world is the hardest thing--but creating a new one is easy.

Is the system the rector of SUNEO created perfect? No, far from it. It is a re-action to the Automous universities through out the country. And in my opinion probably too extreme of a reaction.

Is it developing the state? Yes, but not overnight. The number of graduates is few, but growing. But graduates are only part of the equation. The Universities are dedicated to teaching, research, development, and dissemination of knowledge and culture. At UTM, the non-teaching activities far out number the teaching. Just this Tuesday, the Mexico City Chamber Orquestra played to a standing room only crowd of more than 800 people in UTM's auditorium. Something the people of Huajuapan would never have been able to enjoy if it were not for the presence of this university here.

Here is a link to a PDF file listing the different research projects universities in the SUNEO system have carried out.
http://www.utm.mx/investigacion/LaInvestigacionCientificaSUNEO.pdf

And here is a link describing the activities of UTM's "development brigade".
http://www.utm.mx/promocion.html#brigada

You mention providing good jobs for professors--but you are forgetting that the professors are only a fraction of the employees. UTM has about a 1000 full time employees and only about 200 of them are professors.

You also said that there Oaxaca has no cities with populations of 200,000. You're numbers are off--I've seen all kinds of numbers out there so that's no fault of yours. Also remember that Metro areas populations differ from just one city. Take Mexico City for example, what is the population of D.F. proper? And what's that of the entire area?.
Huajuapan's population can be reliably pegged at over 100,000 though it certainly feels a lot smaller!

I hope some other people weigh in with their ideas concerning SUNEO.

[Isla Guapa]

After reading the essentially negative review of the SUNEO universities posted by ton a bricks, I was waiting to read a rebuttal by MotherF, who has worked at the flagship campus of the system for quite a number of years. I found the points she had to make were done in the spirit of setting the record straight, but not in a defensive way, which I applaud.

I do have one question for MotherF. Ton a bricks wrote: "While the quality standards of the university are high, the number of students graduating is very low, since they are not prepared previously to meet such high standards." Do you find this a fair statement? Do you know what percentage of entering students actually graduate?

[ton a bricks]

Thanks for the thoughtful response. In fact I had read that Miami Herald article years ago, but most of my thoughts were based on my own experiences and those of friends who have taught at the SUNEO, although not in ESL.

I have degrees in development economics and educational theory, and from my observations of what has been going on in Oaxaca, I would find it fair to say that the models being followed by the SUNEO system seem to follow discredited ideas from the 1950's of Rostow's stages of economic growth that have been obsolete since the neoliberal revolution of the 1980's. Installing universities as motors of regional growth does nothing to offset larger macro issues such as government and multinational/supranational organization investments. It's funny you mention Gustavo Esteva, who is completely anti "development". In fact, he mentioned to me recently that Modesto Seara is an old Stalinist; I believe that his authoritarian system discourages critical thinking and foments strict bureaucratic limits to the flexibility of thought and action necessary in a context such as Oaxaca where the educational, political and economic systems have been in crisis now for decades. Meanwhile of course the internal contradictions of all educational systems do allow for good teachers to do good things in every situation. Just some systems encourage that more than others...

As for educational theory, while I must admit that I tend to look towards Vygotsky, Piaget, Gramsci, Freire, H. Giroux and P. McLaren for pedagogical orientation, one might wonder where the orientation of the SUNEO comes from. If you look at the dozens of pages of the rector's curriculum (which is on line), you will find no mention of pedagogy or didactics whatsoever. He is a complete political-economic-commerce specialist who seems to take pride in the fact that pedagogy is not of concern to him. And I felt while I worked there that is showed in attitudes that allowed teachers to ignore pedagogical concerns, including using ESL materials that were quite inappropriate.

I agree that the UABJO is a disaster and the quality of education there is quite appalling. But the fact is, for every student that graduates from a SUNEO university, probably forty graduate from the UABJO, so to disengage from the UABJO and set up this peripheral system has not done much to resolve educational problems in Oaxaca. What is necessary is to find ways to offer better quality education to Oaxacan youth that is relevant to their context and not to bring in a system that would work fine in most industrialized countries, but which needs to take into account that the students are not being prepared for the challenges of the SUNEO system. They need to have their interests considered first, not the needs of the SUNEO's rector and political hangers-on. Perhaps the new government will manage to reconcile the differences between the two universities and integrate some of the quality aspects of SUNEO with some of the accessibility aspects of the UABJO. I want to reiterate, I am sure there are teachers doing very good things in the SUNEO; I personally know several. But in the case of inexperienced teachers learning to teach there? I am not so sure...

[MotherF]

ton-a-bricks, I was thinking about the Mexican press. The rector or SUNEO recieved an award from the Spanish government for his life long work in international law (he pioneered the area of Space law ) a couple of years ago and that sparked interest in the Mexican press on his current projects and there were articles in various national publications.

MO, I looked up the stats--just for UTM for the 2005-2010 class. 458 students entered in 2005. In 2010, 160 students graduated. So that is about 35%. I do think it is fair to say that the vast majority of high school students in the state are not adequately prepared to be able to graduate from these universities. I would like to see the system do more to address that issue (there are courses for high school teachers offered in the summer, but that's not enough). I also don't think it's a system a lot of young people could make it through anywhere in the world. I doubt I would have been able to complete a university course here when I was 18. The educational model is vastly different from the liberal arts education I recieved. But that does not mean it is not a valid model. I do think a lot of the students who enter don't really understand what they are getting into. And as I think I mentioned before, many of them are choosing between these universities or not going to university at all. So it's not the best fit for them. There is certainly room to continue to develop the UABJO, which follows a model of higher education more familiar to most of us on this forum. Especially in fields such as Social Sciences, Arts, Humanities, Medicine and Law, which are not covered in the SUNEO system.

I had to smile at the statement that Pedagogy is not a concern to the rector, because I feel I know how he would respond--of course it's not, he's not in the business of training teachers. Professors are given libertad de catedra by the Reglamento de Personal Academico, and if people have been hired who cannot adequately judge the appropriacy of teaching materials, then that is a problem that should be corrected.

Attracting quality teachers to these rural locations has been a constitant struggle for the system. I personally feel that further expansion should be halted. While having a quality university in the Isthmus region is a great thing--trying to have three quality institutions in the Isthmus region seems unrealistic, and shows that the political motivations do often surpass educational ones.

[DebMer]

Bumping this thread up to ask MotherF a question about qualifications for EFL teachers and salaries at the SUNEO universities.

Can a family of four live reasonably on it as the only income?

[MotherF]

[DebMer]

Thank you, MotherF, for your thorough reply. The details really make the difference as I'm trying to see if a situation would fit.

I'm going to PM you with more details for the sake of privacy.

[DebMer]

Oh drat. I just realized I don't have enough posts to PM you yet. PM to come soon.