Education Minister Antonio Peña Mirabal told reporters that the results of the nationwide public school teacher assessment are being reviewed. Peña, a former financial deputy minister, was named to the post on 24 February 2019. Education Minister Andrés Navarro had resigned to seek the presidential candidacy for the ruling party. ”We are still in the phase of reviewing the results and working out the plan that will benefit those teachers that showed some type of deficiency,” said Peña Mirabal.
At the same time, Peña Mirabal indicated that the Ministry of Education (Minerd) is preparing the technological platform through which each teacher can access their performance evaluation.
When the minister was asked about the recent spate of firings of administrative staff, he responded by saying that since the beginning of his appointment to head the ministry, he has focused on reducing what he called “surplus personnel” in order to “focus more resources on teaching, which is the aim of the system.” As an example, he said that it was not feasible to have five persons appointed as governors (or administrators of the physical plant) at one school. He said that “if this is being a “steamroller” then he was indeed a steamroller. (A political term generally used when a new administration takes over and makes major personnel changes.)
Peña also said the Ministry of Education seeks to improve maintenance in many or most school buildings. He noted that the previous minister, architect Andres Navarro, had created a unit parallel to the existing maintenance organization called School Infrastructure Maintenance.
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El Dia
25 March 2019