Mexico

Partners situated in Mexico

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Mexico in a nutshell

Area 1,972,550 km2 (15th)

Population - mid-2008 estimate 106,682,500 - 2005 census 103,263,388

Currency Peso (MXN)

The United Mexican States commonly known as Mexico, is a federal constitutional republic in North America comprising thirty-one states and a federal district, the capital Mexico City, whose metropolitan area is one of the world's most populous. Covering almost 2 million square kilometres, Mexico is the fifth-largest country in the Americas by total area and the 14th largest independent nation in the world. With an estimated population of 109 million, it is the 11th most populous country and the most populous Spanish-speaking country in the world. As a regional power and the only Latin American member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) since 1994, Mexico is firmly established as an upper middle-income country. Mexico is a newly industrialized country and the 11th largest economy in the world by GDP by purchasing power parity. The economy is strongly linked to those of its North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) partners. Despite being considered an emerging power, the uneven distribution of income and the increase in insecurity are issues of concern. Elections held in July 2000 marked the first time that an opposition party won the presidency from the Institutional Revolutionary Party which had held it since 1929, culminating the political alternation at the federal level, which had begun at the local level during the 1980s.

Mexican education policy

In the field of education, many improvements have been achieved through the years especially to broaden access to basic education, to lower gender and regional inequities and to decentralize the traditional highly bureaucratic and centralized education system. Moreover one third of Mexican population have not accessed or completed their basic education cycle. During the previous program period (PNE: Programa Nacional de Educación 2001–2006), the government tackled several key issues, one of them being to take responsibility in supervising and reforming preschool education and to make it mandatory by 2008 for children aged 3 to 5; the first step was to carry out an in-depth status study and then to reach 100% coverage for children aged 5 and to extend it gradually to those aged 3 to 4;

Nevertheless several deficiencies have to be dealt with to allow the full human development of Mexican society: to fight high rates of dropout and low levels of achievement and qualification towards the labour market.

Therefore the SEP designed the “Programa Sectorial de Educación 2007-2012” with six objectives, each accompanied of quantitive goals and indicators applied to each level of education (primary, secondary and HE).

• Objective 1: to increase quality in education to improve students’ educative achievement and opportunities to gain welfare in order to contribute to the national development.

• Objective 2: to extend educative opportunities in order to reduce social disparities, gaps and to enhance equity.

• Objective 3: to encourage the use of ICT in the education system in order to support learning processes, to expand students’ skills for their future life and to facilitate their integration to the knowledge society.

• Objective 4: to provide a comprehensive educative offer that is a balance between providing citizenship values and developing skills and knowledge via regular classroom activities, practical teaching and an institutional context, in order to enhance democratic and intercultural coexistence.

• Objective 5: to offer quality education services to provide people with a high sense of social responsibility that participate to the labor market in a productive and competitive way.

• Objective 6: to promote a management system that encourages the participation of education centers in the decision-making process, involves the responsibility of different social and educational stakeholders and foments both the students’ and the teachers’ security, transparency and reporting.

The official language of instruction is Spanish. However, increasing attention is being paid to Indigenous education. Mexico recognizes 62 indigenous ethnic groups that speak more than 80 languages. These groups are found in 24 of the 31 Mexican states. More than 1 million indigenous children receive bilingual instruction at the preschool and elementary school levels; this education is offered in 72 dialects from 49 parent languages.

Mexican education system

The education system of Mexico is organized as follows:

• Preschool Education (Educación Preescolar)
• Primary Education (Educación Primaria)
• Lower-Seconary (Educación Secundaria)
• Upper-Secondary Education (Educación Media Superior)
• Higher Education (Educación Superior)

Education in Mexico is provided by institutions under the jurisdiction of the federal, state and municipal government, as well as private institutions. Private institutions with academic programmes must be accredited by the SEP.

Article Three of the Mexican Constitution and the General Law of Education comprise the main legal framework regulating the Mexican education system. Article Three stipulates that all individuals have a right to receive education and that the State has an obligation to provide compulsory and free basic education services and to promote all levels. The General Law of Education (GLE), passed in 1993 and further amended in 2002, widens and reinforces the above principles. Among other things, it clarifies rights and obligations for federal and state authorities. It states that it is SEP’s responsibility to guarantee the national unity of basic education, improve its quality, and seek equity in the access to these services. It also establishes that it is the states’ obligation to provide initial and basic education, including indigenous and special education services, as well as teacher training programs.

For the year 2007-08, the total number of students was 33.3 millions. Among them, 76.5 % are enrolled in basic education levels, 11.5 % in upper-secondary education (or Educación media superior that is the fastest-growing level) and 7.9 %, in Higher Education, which represents 2.6 million students. Besides 71.6 % enrolments are attributed to State institutions (due the massive decentralisation of basic education) and 13.5 % enrolments to private institutions.

Within Higher Education, the level of Técnico superior (technological studies) accounts for 3.2%; Licenciatura (first level of undergraduate studies) accounts for 90.1 % and Posgrado (postgraduate studies up to doctorate) accounts for 6.7% of total students As for the institutional management, the student population is shifted as follows: 39.1 % are enroled in autonomously HEIs, 13.2 %, in State HEIs; 14.3 % in federal HEIs and 33.3% in private HEIs.

Higher education

Higher education is mostly delivered at large public universities. In addition to the large national higher education institutions (like UNAM and the Instituto Politécnico Nacional (IPN), both located in Mexico City), each state has its own state university or state teachers’ college. Public universities are autonomous and are operated by their own organic laws, which means that even though they are publicly funded, their administrative and educational management is left to university boards and officials.

There are six subsystems of higher education institutions in Mexico: - public universities, - technological institutes, - technological universities, - private institutions, - teacher training colleges, - and other public institutions. When all of them are counted, Mexico has 1,250 institutions of higher education.

A pattern of an increasing number of universities and enrolment began in 1940. The country had only 8 universities in that year, increasing its number to 124 in 1980. During the 1998-1999 academic year, ANUIES (National Association of Universities and Institutions of Higher Education) listed 213 universities. Of these, 45 are public universities, where 50 percent of the academic research in Mexico takes place. These universities enroll 52 percent of students pursuing undergraduate education and 48 percent of those pursuing a graduate degree.

There are 147 technological institutes offering higher education. The Ministry of Education (SEP) coordinates 102, while state governments coordinate the other 45. In the latter, students can choose between regular and three-year programs: two years of general education requirements and one year of specialization. There is also another group of institutions of higher education that is not part of the previous two subsystems; some of these are under the SEP and other government ministries. One percent of those pursuing bachelor's degrees and 7.5 percent of those pursuing graduate degrees attend them.

Technological universities are institutions coordinated by state governments but created by federal, state and, in some instances, municipal governments. This educational modality was created in 1991 for students who want to obtain associate degrees. The length of studies is two years. As of 1999 there were 36 technological universities in 19 states.

In the subsystem of private institutions, there were 598 schools, not including teacher colleges. Private institutions are grouped into universities (168), institutes (171), and centres, schools, and other institutions (259). Accreditation for these academic institutions is issued by SEP, state governments, or other public academic institutions authorized to accredit them. Private institutions of higher education have 27.6 percent of the undergraduate enrolment and 36.5 of the graduate enrolment in Mexico.

Teacher training colleges offer bachelor degrees in preschool education, elementary school education, secundaria school education, special education, and physical education. Until 1984, elementary education teacher training was offered at upper-secondary institutions, “escuelas normales”. Currently, teachers for both elementary and secondary education are trained at tertiary level institutions, teacher-training institutes that are separate from general universities and generally offer a four-year curriculum.

So most of the students (two third) attend a public university. However, studying at a private university has become popular in the last decades: there are some high quality private universities that tend to offer what the market demands and therefore often focus on popular fields like business and engineering. Public universities generally offer a wider range of programs. Also research is mainly conducted at public universities, especially when it involves high investments like laboratories.

Public universities and technological institutes of higher education offer affordable education to all Mexicans. In some of the state public universities, semester fees are even lower. Tuition is free although there are fees for some administrative tasks. By contrast, in some of the technological institutes, for example, where the demand for education is high, a semester of fees amounts to nearly $150 dollars. Private universities, however, vary in the admission process and tuition prices.

Higher education reform

Relevant information could not be retrieved...

Administration and finance

The government is only officially responsible for providing compulsory basic education, although it is also involved at the other three levels through public provision of preschool and upper secondary as well as public funding of higher education in most states. Public schools serve 87 percent of all students in the country. Governance is centralized as the national level with the Secretaria de Educación (SEP)—setting the curriculum, selecting textbooks, hiring and firing school personnel, and setting salary schedules. Although Mexico decentralized the basic education system to its 32 states in 1992, this reform was mostly administrative, and did not diminish the centralization of decisionmaking. Overall, teachers and school administrators have little autonomy in the system.

Mexico’s public spending on education is by far the largest component of public spending (24 percent of programmable spending in 2003, i.e about $28 billion). It amounted to 5.9 percent of GDP per capita, above the OECD average of 5.6 percent. Nevertheless, the figure is misleading: since taxation is low, the government’s fiscal resources are scarce and per-capita public spending in education remains low compared to international standards.

All in all, Mexico spends annually about $42 billion on education. This includes all monetary resources that federal and state governments and families spend on education. On average, states fund 85 percent of education spending through federal transfers. However, the Mexican government spends five times as much on a higher education student as it spends on a primary education student.

Quality assurance

Mexico has more than two million students and more than 1000 higher education institutes but among them are many very small institutes or universities of poor quality. Besides, there is no national accreditation system that sets the standard.

In order to determine the quality of a higher education institute in Mexico one should look at several criteria.

• Public universities are autonomous which allows them to create their own syllabus. In contrast, private universities need to have for each program an official recognition by the Mexican Ministry of Education (RVOE : Reconocimiento de Validez Oficial de Estudios).

• Responsibility for the evaluation and accreditation of the programs of both private and public higher education institutes has been allocated to CIEES (Comités Interinstitucionales para la Evaluación de la Educación Superior) and COPAES (Consejo para la acreditacion de la educación superior) which are organisms recognized by the government through the Mexican Ministry of Education.

• FIMPES evaluates private higher education institutions. 21 members of FIMPES have the “Registry of Excellence” issued by the Mexican Ministry of Education in agreement with FIMPES. This is the maximum distinction of quality as a member of FIMPES. The postgraduate programs (Master and PhD) listed in the PNP (Padrón Nacional de Posgrado) have the recognition of academic quality by the Mexican Ministry of Education and CONACyT, the National Council for Science and Technology.

• There is also the The National Assessment Centre for Higher Education/Centro Nacional de Evaluación para la Educación Superior (CENEVAL).

Mexican HEIs in the information society

Due to the economic and social conditions of the country, ICTs continue to be tools used by the privileged sectors in Mexico. The country’s uneven state of digital access is due to differences in income, age, gender, urbanisation, and socioeconomic disparities between regions. However, since mobile telephony is experiencing the greatest growth in the telecommunications sector in Mexico, it could be deduced that it is the service offering the greatest access in the country.

Besides the low penetration of ICTs in business is notable. This varies according to company size, geographic region and economic sector. Reasons cited by various sources include telecommunications regulation, broadband rates, the unequal sizes of companies, and the lack of financing to acquire computer equipment. For this reason, there is a deep digital divide amongst Mexican companies compared to other countries (Tello, 2008).

Without doubt, Mexico needs a digital agenda in order to ensure equitable access. At present a comprehensive digital agenda in the country does not exist. Instead, at federal government level, there are a series of uncoordinated programmes and initiatives in different ministries.

The official initiative involving universal access and governmental information over the last seven years has been e-Mexico, which attempted to create a system of satellite connectivity However, since it was implemented by the Ministry of Communications and Transport, it did not receive support from either the Ministry of Education or the Ministry of Health (Hofmann & García-Cantú, 2008). E-Mexico has not been successful, in spite of several governmental efforts. At present, government agencies are discussing a new strategy for universal access that takes advantage of WiMAX and Wi-Fi connectivity for schools, health centres and government offices across the country. The State Networks for Education, Health and Government, a new version of e-Mexico (without the satellite), and the University Corporation for the Development of the Internet (CUDI) will be the principal implementers of the project.

Virtual initiatives in HE

The three largest initiatives on Distance Education and the use of ICT involved secondary basic education: - Telesecundaria, the Satellite Television Network (EDUSAT): The government accommodated a large proportion of the enrolment growth in lower secondary, particularly in rural areas, through the expansion of the telesecundaria model since it required very little infrastructure and only one facilitator-teacher per grade. Lectures are given via satellite TV in 15-minute programs. In 2002, 1.2 million students were enrolled which represented about 20 percent of the total enrolment in this level. Annual costs per student were about 16 percent higher than in regular schools (counting TV program production, supplementary materials, teacher salaries, and infrastructure). Distance learning has proved to be a cost-effective model although student achievement results and completion rates are not as high as they are in regular secondary schools; - The School Network of Educational Computer Science (Red Escolar): using technology, students and teachers develop collaborative projects related to various subjects. For instance, they participate in reading and writing contests, puzzles, and team research. - Enciclomedia : it started in 2003-04 and consisted of the digitization process of primary education textbooks in CD-ROM format.

Virtual Campus Case-study

No case study in the framework of the Re.ViCa project

Interesting Virtual Campus Initiatives

ECOESAD-Common Area for Distance Higher Education available only in Spanish !

This initiative aims at creating a consortium of public universities in order to develop distance higher education by integrating each institution’s training offer and sharing it nationally. This consortium could be a preliminary step towards a national distance university.

NetACTIVE-TOWARDS A VIRTUAL MOBILITY SCHEME

A Virtual Mobility Scheme has been developed as a part of the Net ACTIVE project, which aims to increase the number of virtual mobility students from Latin America participating in European distance and blended masters, using ECTS. The scheme has been based upon a comparative evaluation of Reports on the European and Latin-American offerings in virtual and blended courses.

Coordinación de Universidad Abierta y Educación a Distancia available only in Spanish !

UNAM coordinates this network portal for Open and Distance University Education. Here is the English version of the UNAM's website Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

Universidad de Guadalajara Virtual available only in Spanish !

This is webportal of the UDGvirtual campus. Here you can find a general presentation in English of Universidad de Guadalajara

Polivirtual available only in Spanish !

This is the English website of the Instituto Politécnico Nacional The virtual campus program is managed by the Unidad Politécnica para la Educación Virtual (UPEV) that encompasses the Department of New Media, the center of educational technology and the coordinating structure of Campus Virtual Politécnico.

Interesting Programmes

Tecnologico de Monterrey

Universidad de Guadalajara

Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

For more details

See OECD THEMATIC REVIEW OF TERTIARY EDUCATION, Country Background Report for Mexico, Ministry of Public Education, November 2006

and OECD Reviews of Tertiary Education, MEXICO, 2008

References

Mexico on the Wikipedia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexico

El Programa Sectorial de Educación 2007-2012 : http://upepe.sep.gob.mx/prog_sec.pdf

Sistema Educativo de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos Principales cifras, ciclo escolar 2007-2008

Mexican education system: http://neso.nuffic.nl/mexico/dutch-organizations/mexican-education-system

Education in Mexico, Challenges and Opportunities: http://www.worldfund.org/assets/files/RAND_Education%20in%20Mexico.pdf

Mexico – Higher education: http://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/984/Mexico-HIGHER-EDUCATION.html

Educación y nuevas tecnologías : http://www.oei.es/quipu/mexico/index.html#eval

GISWatch 2008 – Global Information Society Watch: http://www.giswatch.org/gisw2008/country/Mexico.html

ECOESAD : http://www.ecoesad.org.mx/index.html

NetACTIVE - TOWARDS A VIRTUAL MOBILITY SCHEME: http://www.net-active.info/

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