Writer, essayist, poet, academic and Mexican official, Jaime Torres Bodet was born in Mexico City in 1902 into an enlightened family. He studied Philosophy and Letters at the National University of Mexico and in 1921 he was private secretary to the rector of the university, José Vasconcelos.
Years later, he entered the Foreign Service and was appointed in Europe and South America; to later be named Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs, a position he held until 1943.
Jaime Torres Bodet and creating Free Textbooks
Halfway through the government of President Manuel Ávila Camacho, in 1943, he was appointed Secretary of Public Education, a position he held until 1946. and in which he strove to make the third article of our Magna Carta a reality, which postulates that every individual has the right to receive an education.
These are some of his achievements:
- He gave impetus to the Literacy Campaign for illiterate adults, who at that time were 47.8% of the population over six years of age.
- He built numerous schools, including the Normal School for Teachers, the Superior Normal School, and the National Conservatory in Mexico City.
Later, between 1946 and 1958, he would resume his work as a diplomat.
Second term as Secretary of Public Education
During the presidency of Adolfo López Mateos, Torres Bodet returned to the position of Secretary of Public Education from 1958 to 1964. At that time, he set up a commission to diagnose the Mexican educational system and the results were alarming: only one in a thousand children who entered elementary school would go on to college and have a professional degree. Additionally, 86% would drop out at some point.
Consequently, he initiated the call Eleven Year Plan to improve primary education; he prioritized the construction of rural schools and shaped his greatest legacy: the free textbook.
The National Commission for Free Textbooks, founded by Jaime Torres Bodet
At the beginning of 1959, Torres Bodet was able to materialize his ambitious idea with the help of Martín Luis Guzmán, journalist and writer (author of La Sombra del Caudillo). The challenge was formidable since a circulation of more than ten million books was planned.
To launch the project, The National Commission for Free Textbooks (Conaliteg) was founded; likewise, contests were organized to generate content; large printers were hired; teams of illustrators were formed and famous muralists were even called to paint the oil paintings that would become the first covers.
Educators, historians, mathematicians, poets and writers such as José Gorostiza and Agustín Yáñez also participated in the creation of the books. It is known that the first production of these books cost more than 34 million pesos in 1959.
Finally, not without complications, in 1960, the Commission gave out the first free books for grades one through four. The girl María Isabel Cárdenas, from the Cuauhtémoc rural school, in San Luis Potosí, was the first to receive her free textbook.
Finally, since that year, with or without a crisis, the government has always allocated resources to produce these books.
In the last years of his life, in the 1970s, Torres Bodet was Mexico’s ambassador to France again until 1971. He would commit suicide in 1974, after 16 years of fighting cancer. His legacy lives on to this day.