Mexico City — Twenty-one Mexican states have confirmed they will follow the official school calendar after the federal education authority agreed to end the cycle on July 15, according to the advocacy group Mexicanos Primero.
The organization, which monitors education policy, said Colima, Yucatán and Baja California will fail to meet the mandatory 185 days of class. Colima will cut 23 days, Yucatán 13 and Baja California eight.
While the General Education Law allows adjustments based on local conditions, it also requires that curricula and study plans be fulfilled. Mexicanos Primero estimates that eight out of 10 students will remain under the current agreements.
Campeche, Chiapas, Durango, San Luis Potosí, Tabasco and Tlaxcala have not yet made an official statement on modifications to the end of the cycle, the group said. Those states together represent 3.2 million students in basic education and 615,000 in upper secondary education.
Nuevo León and Sinaloa have decided to change the end date but will still meet the 185-day requirement. Nuevo León will finish on July 8 and Sinaloa on July 10 — seven and five days earlier than planned, respectively.
Last week, following pressure from civil society, academics, teachers and specialists, the Secretariat of Public Education (SEP) reversed its earlier decision to end the school year a month early, which had been justified by high temperatures and mobility issues related to the World Cup.
Before the council unanimously approved keeping the July 15 end date, Education Secretary Mario Delgado had argued that the last five weeks of classes served no purpose.
