High Demand for Bilingual Schoolteachers Has Educators Crossing U.S.-Mexico Border Paul Imison - Fox News Latino
go to original October 3, 2016

This video depicts the educational situation for some of the most vulnerable students in Mexico: indigenous and rural students in Chiapas. Filmed in 2011 it highlights the poor working conditions teachers face, the economic burden placed on student families, and the challenges to teaching and learning effectively in these communities. (Lucrecia Santibanez)

When 36-year-old Jan García from Monterrey, Mexico, went to study for a bachelor’s degree in education in Minnesota 15 years ago, she quickly realized that her professional future lay in the classroom.

Yet her dream of teaching English to elementary school children in Mexico was complicated by the country’s highly-politicized public education system which refused to recognize her qualification.

“If there’s one thing I knew after I came back from the U.S., it’s that I wanted to be a teacher and put my degree to good use,” García, who currently teaches English at a private school in Puebla, told Fox News Latino. “But it’s hard for dedicated, qualified teachers to prosper in Mexico because of the bureaucracy involved.”

Now, however, García sees a new route to fulfilling her dream. She is currently planning to study her master’s degree in Teaching English as a Second Language (TESOL) at a U.S. university and pay her way by teaching in the public school system where demand for Spanish-speaking educators is growing.

“Going back to the states would be a dream come true,” she said. “I want to go somewhere where my skills are valued and I can really make a difference.”

García is looking to benefit from an increasingly integrated economic and cultural relationship between the U.S. and Mexico where the growing demand for bilingual education on both sides of the border is just one example of how the two countries are moving ever closer.

According to the Pew Hispanic Center, 35.8 million people in the U.S. speak Spanish at home. In 2014, 9.3 percent of all children in the U.S. public school system were learning English as a second language, while in Latino-heavy California, the number was 22.7 percent.

But while the number of children in U.S. schools who struggle with English has grown across the country, the number of bilingual teachers has not kept up with that growth.

Read the rest at Fox News Latino

Related: Strengthening Ties Between Mexico and the United States Through Education (James A. Baker Institute)

Related: The Internationalization of Higher Education in Mexico (Times Higher Education)

Related: Globe to Miss Goal for Universal Education by 50 Years (TakePart)

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