With the beginning of the school year this September 1 in Mexico, when millions of young people populate the classrooms of Mexico again, the Catholic Church raised its desire that this return is an “extraordinary opportunity” to continue forging complete people and, through them, “aspire to make our homeland more human and fraternal.”
In a shared statement this day, the Mexican Episcopate Conference (CEM) stressed that education is the path par excellence to “learn the art of living”, warning that without this tool “we will be at the risk of impoverishing the vision of life and the meaning of it.”
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In this sense, the bishops expressed their desire that all students have a good start of the course and recalled that, although not everyone has the same conditions or infrastructure, “that the essentials are not lacking: teachers convinced of their vocation and students eager to grow as human beings.”
During the Official ceremony of the authorities At the beginning of the year, Mario Delgado Carrillo, head of the Ministry of Public Education (SEP), informed that more than 34.5 million students, from preschool to the university, resumed their academic activities. The classes are taught by 2.1 million teachers in more than 262 thousand educational centers throughout the country.
The effort is worth
The return to classes occurs in the midst of important challenges. According to data From the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness (IMCO), 6.4 million people between 3 and 18 do not attend school, and half of those who do not access formal education come from disadvantaged groups.
To this is added school dropout, since thousands of students abandon their studies before concluding compulsory education. The gaps increase as the levels are advanced, since according to the report, only one in three young people who starts the primary manages to reach the university.
In an interview with ACI Press, Fr. Carlos Sandoval Rangel, executive secretary of the Dimension of Culture, Education and Sports of the CEM, acknowledged that this is one of the most serious problems facing the country.
The priest explained that “the more tools we have, life becomes less heavy for everyone. Life is always effort, but it is worth it.” However, he added that when those opportunities are not available it is essential to “live meaning, live with a life project.”
He compared academic training with the rise of an alpinist, in which every step is decisive to reach the goal, and said that “the effort made today, and that desire to be full people, will have benefits for a lifetime.”
Therefore, he urged students to keep in mind “that they have a wealth that must be discovered, and that we are in the growth stage”, and stressed that it should not only look for themselves, but also as a resource that generates “large benefits for Mexico” and their families.
Diego López Colín
I am a graduate of journalism at the Carlos Septién García school with experience of religious institutional communication. Since 2016 I write for digital media and, since 2018, I report the most important news about the Catholic event in Mexico for the Ewtn news channel. ACI Press correspondent in Mexico since 2023.