seven years ago
I took a plane and went to a city
unknown in an unknown country in a
absolutely unknown continent
I was 20 years old and I was in the middle of the
political science career when I was
it happens not in this vehemence
feature that I wanted are my
pre-professional practices in another country
radically different from the one in which I
I lived and another my life that is here and is
here
well when I say well in a mixture between
fear emotion and a few drops of madness that
I want to go live in nigeria to have
a different experience and I made it a
city I moved to nigeria and did it in
a southern city not in port harcourt or
puerto harcourt was born in the south of the country
there nigeria is a city is a country
forgiveness on the west coast of africa
and it has many peculiarities
it is the most populated country of all the
African continent has more or less
150 million inhabitants and 300
dialects talking in a living way in
the country
but it also had another feature
which is that it was the sixth largest exporter
of oil in the world how incredible was
that while this country was exporting
oil other countries could not supply
to your own energy population
so with the days and weeks I
I used to have them for hours and not
made to have light 24 7 permanent shape
it was a luxury almost in the light we all have
that run every our cell phones
connected to the internet to mom with dad
it was working like this
another thing that surprised me
So much to see how in such a rich country
the difference between rich and poor
it went through such elementary questions
like access to water services
drinking there was not a middle class and it was
in that scenario because diverse of
contrasts that I inserted for the first
time in the country
educationally paradoxically not my
country but the one of nigeria entering
work a state primary school
as a teacher and well basically my
work there was to teach girls between
6 and 7 years old boys and girls values as
the dialogue the tolerance and the
I understand honesty and you
they will say and for that he taught them access
we do that with dynamics and games
concrete is not thus you again
they will ask and to teach them
access
I also asked myself the same
start but these elections were charging
felt when I realized every
Once more he is in a city and in a
country torn by an armed conflict
internally and in a militarized city and
in fact these abysmal differences
I also saw that they reproduced in the
school in nigeria be in a school
private or a public towards all
difference in the life of a person not
only its capacity in its possibility
of learning but also in your
possibility of breaking with that circle
crushing poverty with which he was born
you lived, you died and you were given then
I started to wonder if truth
nigeria the state is about education
as a like a right and the truth is
the answer was that it was
more like a favor or like a program
social compensatory that was done with the
population of fewer resources and then
this is revealing to me because
I begin to think that going to school does not
it’s the same as receiving education and that’s
something that we have internalized for a long
time but that is not true and the
school is not the same as receiving education
not if the school does not give you those
basic conditions to be able to assume the
learning and this is when he encourages me to
ask them why education is a
right someone is encouraged to respond
nobody, if we understand that the
education is that unique right
inalienable natural expropriation of the
person to be able to trigger their capacity
self-realization and that also has to
see with the creation and generation of
opportunities
we will understand that the school must be that
flat space that you give everyone
the opportunity to get to do
get where you want and get to do what
what he wants to do is the space he must
be the good school that there are some pictures
not from the lessons he gave in that in
skel elections is left in that school
happens please and this then that
is the vision the school as a space
what does education give you like that
possibility of overcoming
regardless of how you call yourself
your skin color
where you want to go or where you come from and
how all this translates our country
in the Peruvian education system
normally when we talk about education
we say good this one as they do
countries of the region as we are in
comparison of other countries we think about
finland in the Nordic countries but I
I tell them to talk about education and
understand the Peruvian educational system
just compare a public school and
a private one and here I want to tell you two
cases the case of Maria and my own
experience with education Maria and I
would do to me is that now take out the two
we are 28 years old are women we have
dreams and we strive to fulfill them
our parents are not from lima are from
province but moved almost all our
life here and when we started to form
in elementary school school
my father enrolled me in a school
private would call the enrolled a
public
I remember that every time I was around
start the school year
my mother lined all my notebooks
I went like the first day of school tohá
changon to not with everything and notebooks list
to take the whole school year with those
useful that they had bought me but in the
case of Maria entered a school
state public at that time in
the nineties as he gave education
free but did not give any material and
Mary spent some time from his
primary without materials and trying to
borrow and do what he could to
to be able to follow the classes later in
high school
I remember I kept in the same school and
I remember that in my classes they will be 8
at 4 in the afternoon
sometimes I had extra days
curricular and as I left until the
six in the afternoon at school
however maría that followed a school
public in high school I studied
eight to twelve thirty plus or minus
including breaks
why then the state did not offer a
full school day offered a
morning or afternoon and events
you could not have more hours because
Maria had to leave the day of
the morning because the afternoon was coming author
another group at school
this what my parents invested in
my education for a year the school
private and this this is what the
State invested in Maria for a year
public school two treatments
different for the same right in one
be safe and in others you do what you
can and I ask them then will it be
same and we will have the same
opportunities Maria and I having gone
both at school
in this act of receiving education in the
2005 with a lot of effort and studying
quite he managed to enter the Catholic
still in school and can you
attribute this to that he had an education
basic first level and also to that
he had a family that has always been
with me and especially a mother who
Mine is always supporting me
telling me that I could do what I
I would like to sap
however, Maria
well he tried hard and it could be
even much more than I did not manage to enter
in college
and you could say good because that
it may be due to my reasons
yes but there is an objective fact here is that
Maria had a distance gap
between someone who had received a
quality education and someone like her
that he had not been able to have all the
conditions to do it and with this not
I want to say that all schools
private are good and all
public bad there are no public schools
very good very bad private schools
but the truth is that what I tell them
they are not isolated cases you see a lot in
our country
with all these questions
enter to work the ministry of
education in 2015
the building of books and when to
make them honest when I went to work
the ministry in the previous weeks in
what he was saying meeting in
I really wanted to take that step in the state
Peruvian
my friends can political scientists tell me
that they already knew the monster inside
they told me about this is a pod is
enter a giant monster then
bureaucratic more go into logic
inertial ideas good ideas
new
they are not particularly well come from
other older people working 30 40 40
years doing the same and the truth is
that enters with very few expectations in
2015 when he entered the building of
the books one felt an atmosphere of
change
Someone once said there smells like
reform and there was indeed a reform in
March
I saw people walking in a hurry
From one place to another
you saw people talking the elevators of
his work and at lunches when
I had to move forward but how important
they knew that the work they did this
reform
it had come being led by the ex
education minister jaime saavedra and he
was at some point it was a space
of ted here in Peru was not ours
former education minister Juan important
was that the state is coming back in the
educational policy to give back to the
public school
full school day that was going to be
that guys like Maria could study
again from 8 to 3 of table b
another one of the bets that he brought is not
our former minister saavedra was the one of
secondary complete so the ces that was
that is precisely the bet that the
been so that the boys do not desert
the public high school also talked about
the gap is in infrastructure
how much we still need to close that gap
of the magisterial reform law so
discussed now but it returns you to
teacher that chip of excellence of
reward the best and motivate the
that are on their way to reach
that excellence
one of the first things I heard
when the ministry comes in, it is
that the public school should stop being
seen as that space for those who do not
they have money and it is and asylum so
we thought and so we keep thinking about the
first project to which between the
education ministry as a traffic light
school semaphore school was a system
of gigantic monitoring had a
army of monitors for the first time
deployed throughout Peru from the
Ministry of education making visible
that blind spot that had been therefore
time the school for the ministry of
education and why then because it was a
Titanic operation does not visit 50 thousand
schools throughout the national territory
from the most recondite place in ucayali
until the school that is such thing the
education ministry is love and my
work was my job was then together
with a team of eight guys pick up
all this information
well, better, process all the
information that came from the ministry of
education and in some reports that we
SEMAF delivered color of colors
traffic light green yellow and red according to what
schools were as good or bad as
we have to work for
improve certain indicators and from which
we talked we did not talk about learning
we talk about preconditions for
example that there is a teacher in the classroom
that there is a student in the classroom too
that there is a director as leader
pedagogical of the school present when
they arrive at representatives of mafra school
what is in materials
because the state now already gives materials
to schools that have not only
materials but enough
then all those conditions
we saw and worked to improve them like this
in 2015 that was when we started
work this initiative
we went from having a map in attendance
of directors in August the 15 this one was
our map of Peru
about how was the assistance of
directors in the country in schools and
we had all the whole jungle in red
the coast in yellow theme and the sierra
between green and yellow and a few months
then in November 2015 we achieved
that the map that there is no region in
red and that the map then look
predominantly green and that we did
working side by side with governments
regional with addresses
regional education watching
what will those places be
consistently green and going to that
place to see what they did well so tacna
moquegua taught us that what
they were doing well to make their
directors were present at the
school and that experience we take for
all of Peru and disseminated it more to
that could scale the whole country and so
we have done it with these conditions that
for a long time because of this logic of
previous reform of the sde of education
in terms of quantity and in terms of
have more schools and not know what
devils happens in schools
this logic started to change the good
news all this is that we have
then a reform is that the
state is beginning to eat the
litigation of education and in fact this
He has been doing it for several years but what
happens
we are swimming against the current for
make them honest
We are swimming against the current
reform not only its fruits in 2013
when we started, well, being in
the queue in 2013 of the countries that
they had been evaluated with the pisa test
and a few years later what we have in the
2015 that were results that were
published in 2016
the Pisa test that are taken in 2015
only two years after this first
proof that put us to Peru in the
last place from 65 countries
the following test showed us that the
dog was the peru had left the
last place and that was one of the countries
that had grown the most in indicator in
was in performance in terms of understanding
mathematical reader and science
then we have started to come out of this
hole where we were and they are already
seeing results because the state left
to think in terms of quantity and in
terms of seeing education as a
please to see it as a right and to
see it through the glasses of the
quality and excellence
these were some of the these are
the three indicators precisely in the
that pepe el peru evolved in its
score and in the 3 we improved
consistently now as I say
we have a challenge we are swimming against
current and I think that for nobody it is
a that a surprise that now the great
the great topic of discussion in this country
is education and I could say that the
main challenge because he had a list
not of challenges that need to start
address in education but the truth is
that all this is now summarized to one
thing is the political commitment in the
2016
censored our former minister jaime
that is to say he was expelled to
education ministry and between a new
minister a new minister
but the progress of the reform comes
being slow and difficult and on a path
stony because simply our
political class do not wear the shirt
with education we have a bureaucracy
in the education ministry that comes
pushing the car and we have been doing it
or leaving the soul on the court but I think
that the political class really has
to understand that for a reform
can bear fruit in a country because it has
that having a certain time is true
days to your name
but I went to one to a talk in the
peaceful university where a girl that
works in said forum sun of this network does not
of young people who cover offer of
teachers in the world had traveled
various educational systems of the world the
better and one of the things that had
said she that it was a common practice in
all is that all these countries had
educational systems that had bet
for reforms in a period of 15 20 30
years and I say well if one of the
formulas to have one of the
conditions better said to think
in having a quality educational system
is sustainability the reforms like
We do as we do in Peru
there are we can not stand two
ministers of education in less than one
year censored
so then the commitment I believe
now it goes with the political class and it’s
simply start is that simply
you begin to understand that the reforms
in education has been for a long time
seen as anything but as a
right has been seen as a business
to do to do bad education
quality that provides the profit some and
other scam has been seen as a
prebenda has been seen as a share of
power in a ministry in a teaching
has been seen as a political lever
and we have to let ourselves do politics
with education
just with that idea in 2016 in the
frame of the censorship against the ex
minister saavedra
we started to be a collective by the
education we started a partner and I
in Cusco in the middle of a visit to a
public university because what
we want to precisely put the
education in the center of the board
public that education is not seen
as I use one more point in a sheet
well , of desires, but it really is
a priority but also also
we want to make visible those interests that
Nowadays, certain groups remain
of power and some lobbies are maintained
who do poor quality education and
who also seek to penetrate the class
policy so they can stay then
profiting with education at the expense of all
the Peruvians
this collective is called education is
respect us we founded a 30 of
November 2010 and 6 and 12 days of
12 days later on December 12
we call the first march for the
education of the country and that’s what
we had in the plaza san martín s 12 of
December thousands of young people who were going
first time to scream for the education of
your country already ask that education that
with education do not play with the
education is not negotiated that we can like
as a country and as a political class are in
disagreement with many things but not
we can be in we can not be in
disagreement in one is that we all want
quality education and we all want
get to the highest note in
education and this is one of the images
with which I stay because when
I was walking in the middle of the march
He is approached as a person with this
flag and that today I see that there are many
many sellers selling flags that
they said education is respected and in that
moment I said something we have achieved
we will be Chile that takes 600 thousand 600 thousand
young people on the street to ask for education
of quality but we have achieved that
start doing merchandising with the
education is respected and that people
poor people and get excited and saved their
flag and you take pictures and selfish with your
Education banner is respected and
then we said then definitely
we have started this work of putting
education in the center of the board
public and we have to keep pushing
for aligning us all so much politicians
as citizenship as a private sector as
public sector
all in a single task that is that
we have the best possible education for
our guys and that is education
that they deserve besides I love them
ask only one thing before
finish this is this
conversation that is that when they get to
their houses as I write and search in
facebook to the politician to the congressman for
who voted and ask what state
what bill are you pushing for
the improvement of educational quality because
Well, I think it’s very good
let’s do control but also
we have to have proposals
then let’s do this audit
citizen from education is respected
we have been doing that surveillance
educational and I think this is a party
that we can not play alone or a
ministry in a collective and a person
this reform is everyone’s and therefore
I invite you all to get involved when
between the education ministry
a group of friends gave me this shirt
and they said welcome to the game for
education and today I want to tell you
welcome to the party for education
Peruvian thank the
”
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