The schools that are part of the La Escuela Es Nuestra (LEEN) program are in uncertainty because they are not guaranteed the supports for extended hours and food. In addition, the 27,000 institutions that were part of Full-Time Schools will not be able to receive resources from the new program.
Because the SEP made modifications to the operating rules, which establish that “the campuses previously selected in previous fiscal years, will no longer be susceptible to be benefited again by the LEEN program for the current fiscal year.”
But that’s not all, those schools that are selected for the first time to be beneficiaries, do not have the guarantee that they will receive the support on a second occasion. Nor is there certainty that in the current school year the resources will be sufficient to cover both services: food and overtime.
In fact, the program’s own rules of operation include a section in which they indicate that schools may have food service even if parents decide not to have extended hours.
Why do so when the Full-Time Schools always contemplated the two services?
“They do not give the accounts to have an extended day with food service, it is not enough,” says Fernando Alcázar, director of the legal studies area of Mexicanos Primero.
Alcázar explained that although the amounts that La Escuela es Nuestra will deliver this 2022 are higher, compared to previous years, the reality is that they are insufficient to cover the expenses of food and overtime for students of basic education.
The expert exemplified the problem with a campus that has 100 students and which, according to the rules of operation, would have a support of 250 thousand pesos.
For food, the program includes a maximum subsidy of 15 pesos per student per day, that is, one thousand 500 pesos per day in this campus with 100 students. The 2021-2022 school year consists of 200 days, so only in food a support of 300 thousand pesos would be required.
In addition, the payment would be missing to the School Coordinator of the Food Service (CESA) who will be in charge of the preparation of the food who, according to the 2022 guide of the program, will receive a support of up to 3,800 pesos per month.
Another pending would be the payment to teachers who will cover overtime; a transaction that was previously made by state governments and that will now be the responsibility of parents.
Schools without guarantees
The director of the area of legal studies of Mexicanos Primero explained that at the moment there is no reference for this year of how much teachers and managers should be paid for overtime, but if the amounts of 2021 are taken, it would be talking about a payment between 30 and 45 thousand pesos per school year to a teacher; and between 45 and 60 thousand pesos per year to a manager.
“If in a school they have (in extended hours) a teacher and a manager we are talking about their payment means a third of what they receive. They don’t give you the accounts,” Alcázar insisted.
For the expert, this is lending itself to a simulation and you can even run the risk that the resource will be used in something else such as an infrastructure work.
“In fact this is lending itself to a simulation and you can run the risk – there is a high probability – that to avoid all these problems; and seeing that it will not reach them (the school committees) decide better to use the money for an infrastructure work,” he warned.
Since 2007, when the Full-Time Schools program began as a pilot test, year after year it was adding to benefited educational establishments until reaching, in 2020, 27,067 schools with a population of 3 million students who were guaranteed resources so that year after year -once within the program- they did not stop being beneficiaries.
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