Failed: The full-time schools of Mexico City

The program of full-time schools in the Federal District (Mexico City) has failed: the Chief Audit Office detected that out of 533 school campuses located in defined areas of “high” and “very high” degrees of marginality only 15 establishments were benefited; it detected the improper conclusion of agreements and contracts for 78, 805, 000 Mexican pesos and the delivery of over 4 million pesos to 47 directors and one supervisor lacking the supporting documentation.

The Chief Audit Office of the Federation (ASF) detected several irregularities in the Full-time Schools Program (PETC) of the Federal District (Mexico City) that call into question its effectiveness.

Derived from the scrutiny of the Public Accounts 2013, it issued 10 observations that generated four recommendations, seven promotions of penalizing managerial responsibility and a document of observations directed to the Federal Administration of Educational Services of the Federal District. Over 82 million pesos are involved in these irregularities.

In accordance with the Chief Audit Office of the Federation (ASF), decisions for the exercise and verification of the assigned budget were taken to the program without delivering the documented elements that will justify the selection of the benefited schools, the amounts and types of financial and technical support provided, as well as the distribution, application and verification of the resources.

The Full-time School program

In 2013 the Federal Administration of Education Service of the Federal District (AFSEDF) disbursed 452,853,000 pesos of the budgetary program S221 Program of Full-time Schools, an initiative of the federal government that has as an objective to contribute to an improvement of the efficiency of the pupils of public schools of basic education level throughout the extension of the working time from 6 to 8 hours daily, called “extended dayshifts” and “full-time”, respectively; inasmuch it suggests to benefit the public schools of basic education, preferably to those that give all levels of basic education, dispose of campuses and adequate conditions for the extension of the working hours and that attend vulnerable population or in context of social risk.

Throughout the program technical and financial support is given to education campuses, destined to training courses for the managerial, education and support staff; schools are provided with didactic material and computer equipment for education use; school areas are improved; follow-up, support and assessment is provided to schools covered by the program; and economic support for the acquisition of services and inputs for the alimentation for pupils and teachers.

The irregularities

The Report of results of the Superior Audit of the Public Account 2013 drafted by the ASF “presumes a likely mischief or loss to the public federal finance” of up to 4,132,025 pesos. The resources would have been provided to 47 directors and one scholar supervisor without certifying with proving documentation the exercise of the latter.

It also has been identified that 59 directors and 9 school supervisors have been receiving support for 13, 290,000 and 151,900,000 pesos respectively, which are not listed as education campuses that are not beneficiaries of the PETC.

The ASD reports that 1,446,000 education campuses were benefited out of a total of 4,221 schools legible to be incorporated to the PETC, thus only benefiting in the scholar year 2013-2014 34.3% of those, with an expenditure that reaches 452,853,000 pesos; “without giving evidence of the number of benefited schools, the amount of the financial support provided to every school, the destined resources for the technical support, that contributed to the strengthening of the education, and without giving evidence of how the strategy was designed and the procedure of selection of the schools to be benefited, as well as the requirements of eligibility that have to be met”.

Neither did it evidence the selection of the benefited pupils by economic support, since 533 schools located in the municipalities of the Federal District in defined areas of high and very high degree of marginality, of which only 15 were provided with the latter.

It also concluded improperly two agreements with international organisms for over 17,856,000 pesos in the concepts of “assessments” and “training courses to the teaching staff” of the full-time schools, despite that the organism was not part of the public federal administration.

The Secretariat of Public Education (SEP) throughout the ADSEDF subscribed two specific agreements of collaboration ((CONVENIO/ ESP.1/AFSEDF-ILCE/2013 and the CONVENIO/ESP. 2/AFSEDF-ILCE/2013) and two contracts for the service delivery (AFSEDF/DGIFA/CAP./SUB, DIR Y DOC DE ETC/2013 and AFSEDF/IEPSA/DGIFA/2013) for an amount of 78,805,000 pesos “failing to intercede in the contract procedure that proves that the providers would be the most convenient option to assure the best available conditions related with price, quality, financing and opportunity for the State, and that could give equal and transparent access to the participants”.

Hence the beginning of an investigation and of a procedure of penalization of managerial responsibility was promoted before the Internal Control Body, for actions and omissions of public servants that in their management, being responsible of the applicant area of the contracted services, formalized the instruments without complying it with the Law of Procurement, Leasing and Services for the Public Sector.

Also a beginning of investigations was instructed, thus of a procedure of a penalizing managerial responsibility for the actions and omissions of public servants that brokered agreements with international organizations without assuring that the integration of the staff in charge of the work and where the definition of the final product are determined in accordance with the necessities to be covered of the benefited public schools of the program of full-time schools, or without assuring that the conditions of the training courses, the application of the pedagogic activities and the content of the thematic clusters were determined in accordance with the existing necessities of training in the benefited public schools of the aforementioned program.

Also a penalizing managerial responsibility was promoted before the Internal Control Body for acts of omissions of public servants that agreed on the delivery of services with an educational institution consisting of a training called “Supervisors, Directors and Teachers of Full-time Schools”, whose objective was to endow to the teaching staff conceptual and strategic tools, that will allow them to contribute to the improvement of the educational achievement of the pupils of the full-time schools, failing to assure the definition of the thematic clusters, benefited population, as well as the conditions under which the services are determined in accordance with the necessities to cover in the benefited schools under that program.

Confronted with the observations the General Directorate of Innovation and Academic Empowerment (DGIFA) issued the “Disposition for the Assignation of Economic Support for the Alimentation of Pupils of Schools embedded to the Program of Full-time Schools in the Scholar Year 2013-2014 in the Federal District”, whose purpose is to establish the criteria and conditions in order to assign equally the economic support to every pupil, which will allow them to receive at least one nutritious meal during the school-day.

The AFSEDF transferred 18,365,500 pesos of the item expenditure No. 44101 “Expenditures related with cultural and sports activities and extraordinary help” directed to boys, girls and young people, to a bank account that was opened for the administration and distribution of the resources of the PETC in the fiscal year 2013, through which it spread at once the financial support of 2,873,000 pesos to the pupils of 15 campuses located in the Municipalities of Gustavo A Madero, Tlalpan and Alvaro Obregon, considered in the strategy of the National Crusade against Hunger (Cruzada Nacional contra el Hambre) as areas in which there are situations of high and very high degrees of marginality.

Out of the transferred resources it has been verified that the Federal Administration of Educational Services of the Federal District delivered 17,855,600 pesos through a check made payable to 6,215 pupils and returned 509,900 pesos that correspond to uncashed checks by the pupils.

Specifically it has been observed that the DGIFA as being responsible of the adequate execution of the program did not justify the criteria of selection employed to define the number of campuses and the amount of economic support that was delivered to each pupil, inasmuch that according to the strategy of the National Crusade against Hunger there are four municipalities (Gustavo A Madero, Tlalpan, Alvaro Obregon and Iztapalapa) of the Federal District with defined areas of high and very high degrees of marginality, in which there have been identified 533 campuses embedded to the program of full-time schools; however only pupils of 15 of them were benefited in 2013, hence failing to justify that the selection mechanism delivered equal access to the pupils of the participating schools in the program, and that the amounts delivered were enough to contribute to improve the alimentation of the benefited pupils.

For the realization of this work, since the past 13^th of July an interview was requested to the Federal Administration of Educational Services of the Federal District, through Victor Torres and Ricardo Burgos. Until the closing of the edition no positive answer had been received.

Elva Mendoza, @elva_contra

(Translated by: Axel Plasa)