My name is Fernando Cortes, I live in the greenest state in Mexico : Veracruz. In the small city of Papantla known internationally by its flying men and the archeological zone “El Tajín” which means: “Thunder city".
This assignment intends to explain how valuable and connected are the concepts of writing and the social concern for education in society in order to gain welfare and development for the individual and his family.
Meditating on my writer´s autobiography, I finally came to the conclusion that I had nothing to say for a long time. Therefore, I never thought of myself as being a writer or someone who has the eagerness to be a writer. Hence, all of the things I wrote before, were just that: assignments, something I had to do either in the school or in life, but not anymore, not for the past few years.
My father having lived in poverty most of his childhood and young adulthood did not want me to attend private schools, So that I wouldn´t aquire a false idea of the reality for millions of children in Mexico living in poverty. He wanted me to make friends with the real Mexican people, Thus I did not lose foot from the ground and misinterpret life.
Education he said: represents the most important factor in life, "it is the key to success and contributes to your family´s development and economic growth"
Therefore, writing has being like a butterfly metamorphosis, or a germinating seed inside of me. Though it took a while, now I have a reason to write.
Books have given me identity, radically different from all cultural and historically accepted mexican concept. One of my favorites in this regard comes from Octavio Paz (Mexican Nobel Price winner in Literature) "Las Trampas de la Fé", which tells the story of our greatest poetry author from the XVII century: Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. Her love for knowledge was so dear that she sacrificed herself to become a member of the convent, and educate herself, since there were no other options for children at the time to obtain a formal instruction. Ironically, as a result of this, an uneducated but powerful head of the church, silenced her and condemned her to never read a book again, Therefore exhorting her to resist the evil temptation for knowledge. Indeed condemning science and education as a form of evil origin.
The book "Quetzalcoatl and Guadalupe" written by the French-Mexican Scholar: Jacques La Faye, who digs into the origins of the Mexican religious identity and "La Puta de Babilonia" written by the Colombian-Mexican Fernando Vallejo along with Paz´s above mentioned work, have influenced my point of view on Religion.
These works did what they were supposed to do: Inform,Change opinion and influence an action in me.
This is the goal of education per se. This is why the world has been grading the countries wealth by their degree of education (OECD organization) for several years now. Unfortunatelly the recent results of the Mexican evaluation, rises the question ¿Why Mexico´s Educational system has failed to help its people raise their levels of wealth?
My father had to put up with very awkward situations to earn money and keep going with his studies, My mother once told me, he even played the role of a guinea pig in the university hospital to earn some pesos and go on with his education life. Being one child from a peasant family of 7 in the poor state of Tlaxcala, he was used to not having any money in his pockets or food in his belly, except for some beans and tortillas every day. He became the only child going to the University, and finally earned the Mechanical Engineer degree that led him to work for the nationalized oil company at that time: PEMEX, In fact, due to his eagerness, honesty and hard work he climbed the ladder of positions to be the head of one of the divisions in his home town.
He saw what education can do for a person, so he expected the best from me.
I finally earned a B.A. degree in International Relations and became a part of the statistics.
All this time I saw a large number of young people pass by with the same problems: failing career spectations, not working on anything related to what they studied, unemployed or working in the informality system of the economy, and also saw many young people take the wrong step to earn a living shortening their life span and others by entering the drug business, and even in a brink of depression have committed suicide to end their misery. (Mexico´s number one reason for suicide deaths is unemployment)
Finally, due to a family tragedy, I had to come back to my home town and thanks to people I know I am working in the oil business again where I live a decent life. Unfortunately most of the people do not have that chance.
It was because of this, that I took the time and effort to learn about the education system, and found out, how only 25 out of 100 people go to the University level, and from those who graduate, 6 out of 10 finally do not work or use what they studied.
61% of the economic active population works in the informality industry (this means: no social service, no health plan, no housing or retirement benefits etc...)
If the American people ever wondered why mexicans risk their life and their children’s life to pursue their dream going to United States, it´s due to the lack of opportunities here. Minimum wage is 5 US dollars per day, not per hour. This leaves us with 52-80 million living in poverty (depending on how you measure poverty line).
México´s relation between education and unemployment is positive. This means that the more education someone has, the more chances he or she has of falling into unemployment. The average education level is 9.2 years
I still believe the solution comes with education, but we have much to do. In fact, there are not enough technical or community colleges where the majority of the people can learn something useful and prosper with in life.
The higher education system has failed to deliver the skills necessary to ear a living. A recent study or research done by CIDAC (a research house) and sponsored by the USAID, came to the conclusion that there is a broad gap between what the market needs of the college graduate and what the universities teach.
Just to give you an example: my home town was once (1920´s and 1930´s) the number one oil producer in Latin America, but the universities here did not teach the oil engineer career until 10 years ago.
The problem is complex and challenging. The future of México is at stake.
Much of the country´s insecurity is due to the lack of opportunities and the despair people feel when their situation has not improved.
References:
Mas datos sobre suicidio en México
History in Short: The British Mexican Petroleum Co. ltd
The Rise and Decline of the Mexican Oil Industry
Petroleum Engineering in Poza Rica
Oil
Poza Rica
History in Short: The British Mexican Petroleum Co. ltd
The Rise and Decline of the Mexican Oil Industry
Petroleum Engineering in Poza Rica
Oil
Poza Rica
