Mexico’s new president unveiled a planned overhaul of the country’s struggling education system on Monday in a challenge to the powerful teachers’ union, which has long been seen as an obstacle to progress, Reuters reports. Addressing teachers at a ceremony in Mexico City, President Enrique Pena Nieto laid out a proposal that would champion merit-based teacher promotions and chip away at the union’s power to hire teachers on its own terms.
“Your rights will be safe because your income, tenure and promotion will not be subject to discretionary criteria,” said Pena Nieto, before signing the proposal that he promised to send to the lower house of Congress later on Monday. “Good teachers will have the opportunity to advance based on their professional merits.”