There has been a mixed response to elementary school reforms in Mexico that have created widespread uncertainty among teachers, children and parents, new research shows.

Those affected have expressed concern about a lack of training to help them prepare for the big changes, but also enthusiasm about many of the goals.

The new Nueva Escuela Mexicana (NEM) in basic education represents a major change in curriculum, pedagogy and assessment.

Subjects such as math and science have been combined into integrated “formative fields.” There is a focus on education that places more value on local communities and an emphasis on active and interactive learning through projects.

Children also learn more about topics related to inclusion and diversity. Teachers have increased independence to adapt their work to local contexts.

NEM has been met with both enthusiasm and skepticism. This research is one of the first to comprehensively collect people’s experiences and perspectives on NEM during the first full year of implementation.

The study was performed by Dr. Nozomi Sakata, from Hiroshima University and Dr. Nicholas Bremner, of the University of Exeter. They conducted 79 interviews with students, teachers, parents, principals, teacher trainers and supervisors in 12 elementary schools in Nuevo León, Hidalgo and Chiapas.

Dr Bremner said: “We found a mix of positive and negative perspectives, but overall there was widespread uncertainty about the NEM reform. Although teachers, principals and teacher educators got used to the changes over time, they were frustrated by inconsistent policy messages and a general lack of explicit education.”

Researchers recommend that more concrete training and support is needed, especially in supporting teachers to deal with increased autonomy. They say there also needs to be a more consistent, clear communication strategy.

The research suggests that the Mexican Ministry of Education needs to address concerns that the changes could lead to gaps in basic knowledge. They should consider the extent to which students may need basic knowledge to develop higher order skills.

Communication with parents and the public should also be strengthened to clarify what NEM does and what it does not do.

Dr. Bremner said, “More emphasis seems to have been placed on the ‘what’ – the content of the reform itself – and much less on how to implement it.”

“The interviewees were very concerned about the lack of ‘basic’ knowledge that many of their students had, and there was a lot of skepticism about combining specific school subjects into ‘formative fields.’

Teachers, students and parents were generally very supportive of content related to inclusion and diversity, but expressed doubts about certain topics, such as content related to gender and sexuality.

Those affected by the reform were generally satisfied with the notion of ‘focusing on the local’, contextualisation and teacher autonomy. However, some teacher did not always know how to handle such independence, and requested more clear guidance.

A local supervisor in rural Chiapas said, “There is one paradigm shift; there is a change in the attitude towards education. But there has been no real systematization of teacher training.”

A local supervisor in rural Nuevo León said: “We started being updated on a drip basis. (…) The information either came too fast for us to transmit it, or it came late, or it didn’t come at all. . You asked the corresponding education authority, and they didn’t know either (…) I would say it’s not consistent, and sometimes it’s not coherent.