Iris Velázquez / Reform Agency
Tuesday, April 18, 2023 | 18:33
Mexico City.- The portal where citizens could consult educational information such as the number of students by level, teacher payrolls, evaluation results and characteristics of the infrastructure of the schools was disabled after the Ministry of Public Education (SEP) asked the Inegi to revoke its status of national interest.
“Notice! We inform you that the SIGED portal is temporarily out of service. We appreciate your understanding”, is the phrase that appears in a red box when opening the page of the Educational Information and Management System (SIGED), a portal that concentrated the information from the SEP and was fed with data from the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi).
The information stored in the SIGED was considered essential to know the reality of the Country and, therefore, it was classified within the Inegi as Information of National Interest (IIN) for complying with its requirements of methodological rigor and its periodicity.
However, on Monday, April 10, the Inegi Governing Board published in the Official Gazette of the Federation (DOF) the determination to revoke the status of IIN of the SIGED.
This public information tool was used by researchers, teachers and stakeholders in the education sector and recently, during the Covid-19 pandemic, served to document school dropout, a topic on which there was reluctance from federal authorities in the matter of transparency and data with which specialists asked for accounts on actions on the educational gap.
In this regard, the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness (IMCO), a research center, warned that this decision by the SEP threatens access, quality and the mandatory use of this public information, which it highlighted as essential for the design of educational policies. based on evidence that respond to the current needs of education in the country.
“Despite being the Inegi’s decision, it is surprising that this action was promoted by the SEP itself since 2022, who managed to justify before the Inegi that the SIGED information does not have the necessary attributes to have this classification. This decision is another blow for the generation of periodic, timely and quality public information on educational matters,” he stressed.
The Information of National Interest must comply with the characteristics of information quality and the methodological rigor of the Inegi, so it can be used as an input for decision-making, design, implementation and evaluation of public policies.
Education, is it information of national interest?
According to the Law of the National System of Statistical and Geographic Information (SNIEG), the information must meet four criteria to be classified as of National Interest (IIN): address topics, data groups or indicators of various topics, including education ; be necessary for the design and evaluation of national public policies; be information generated on a regular and periodic basis; and be prepared with a scientific methodology.
Pursuant to the decree published in the DOF, the SIGED information does not meet the third criterion.
“This is the result of the modifications promoted by the Federal Government itself that have jeopardized the collection and generation of data, such as the elimination of the National Institute of Educational Evaluations (INEE) and the professional teaching service, the suspension of the National Plan for the Assessment of Learning (Planea tests), among others,” said the IMCO.
“These changes in the institutional framework of education in Mexico have threatened and violated the periodic generation of information that is necessary for educational improvement and without which evidence-based policies cannot be designed,” he urged.
This research center considered that with this revocation, and without the IIN classification, the educational information will cease to be official and of mandatory use for all government instances (federation, federal entities and municipalities), as stated in article 6 of the SNIEG Law.
“This could result in poorly designed and evaluated educational policies that do not address the needs of educational communities. Information could become just an accessory in the process of formulating, implementing and evaluating educational strategies. It could be limited the right to access and transparency of public information,” warned the institute.
The IMCO noted that, since they are no longer supplied by the Inegi, many of these will have to be obtained through transparency.
“Although the authorities will continue with the collection and safeguarding of the SIGED information, the Inegi will stop providing said information to the authorities and to society. As it is not published, processed and disseminated proactively by the Inegi, requests for information to be able to access it, which hinders access to information,” he said.
“It is imperative that the SEP guarantees the generation of periodic information and that the Inegi ensures the supervision and availability of information so that the authorities have a quality input for the design of educational strategies,” was the petition.
