Mexico City – Former Director General of Educational Materials at the Secretariat of Public Education (SEP), Marx Arriaga Navarro, revealed that Education Secretary Mario Delgado offered him an ambassadorship “months ago,” a position he declined. Arriaga stated the post came with a salary “not regulated by republican austerity” and the lifestyle of an ambassador, but he refused it to remain in his role and defend the recently developed textbooks.
Arriaga disclosed the offer during a live stream broadcast on his social media accounts lasting over eleven hours. He asserted that the ambassadorship was a condition for him to step down and allow changes to be made to the textbooks. “It’s true, he offered it, and I didn’t accept it, because I wasn’t going to betray the teaching base,” he said.
Following Secretary Delgado’s public acknowledgement of the offer, Arriaga stated he “preferred to stay and defend, even if only for a few more weeks, the materials of all the colleagues in the country who believed in this project.” He added that witnessing the completed work made his decision worthwhile.
Arriaga indicated the ambassadorship would have been to Costa Rica, making him the “first Texcocano ambassador” to the country, but he prioritized the impact of the textbooks, specifically highlighting the contributions of illustrators and community projects that revitalized cultural spaces.
The former director also refuted claims that he opposed including content about women in the free textbooks, emphasizing that hundreds of women participated in their creation as illustrators, project developers, and evaluators.
Arriaga’s removal from his position followed controversy surrounding the primary school textbooks for the 2023/2024 school year, which contained errors. He had recently accused Delgado’s administration of maintaining and deepening privatization processes within public education and called for the creation of committees to defend the Recent Mexican School model and the free textbooks. The SEP, in a statement, characterized the removal as a “diligence” to notify Arriaga that his position would change in nature as of February 15th, denying it was a forced eviction. A video circulated showing Arriaga being escorted by police and refusing to leave his office.