Secretary of Education Says 'No Child Should be Held Back' The News
go to original August 25, 2012

MEXICO CITY – Secretary of Education José Ángel Córdova Villalobos said this week that the comprehensive reform of basic education will ensure that students from preschool until third grade are not held back.

After a presentation at the Secretariat of Education’s (SEP) headquarters on the Distance Learning and Open University of Mexico, Córdova Villalobos said that in third grade, teachers and parents can make the decision to hold back a student based on their age, developmental stage or learning abilities.

“In these first three years of learning that are a part of an essential formative stage, children will have the time to continue progressing without being held back. We want to avoid holding students back as much as possible because when it happens, children are discouraged from learning and often leave the educational system.”

The education secretary went on to say that beginning in fourth grade, students will have to pass all of their classes, with the exception of two subjects.

In middle school, students will only be able to fail four classes, but will be given the opportunity to re-take the courses to continue in the educational system.

“The objective is to remove the punitive aspect of being held back or failing, and to find a constructive way in which we can evaluate students so that they can work on academic weaknesses.”

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