Anna+learned+about+School+in+Mexico!

1. LEVELS Divided into four levels: The Mexican education system is divided into four levels called preschool, (which is like our preschool and kindergarten),compulsory basic education (which is like our grades 1–9), upper secondary education (which is like our grades 10–12), andhigher education (which is like American colleges).

2.  FUNDING According to Mexican law, the government is only responsible for providing funding for the compulsory basic education level, but it also helps with preschool, upper secondary, and higher education. The government spends around $28 billion yearly on education, which is almost a quarter of its budget. On average, states fund 85% of education spending through money from the national level.

3. OTHER MAJOR DONORS WHO FUND EDUCATION The World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank provide about 1-5% of Mexico’s education funding, and therefore have influence on policies and reform of the education system.  4. WHO’S IN CHARGE? Public school districts are run at the national level through an organizations called Secretaria de Educación ( Public Education Secretariat) . This group determines curriculum, selects textbooks, hires and fires school staff, and sets staff member salaries. In 1992, Mexico voted to make the control of the basic education system belong to the 32 states, but the large majority of the decision-making takes place at the national, rather than state, level. Basically this means that teachers and school administrators don’t have much say in what goes on in the Mexican education system.

5. MAJOR ISSUES The biggest issues in Mexico’s education system are poor high dropout rates after the primary level, few upper secondary schools (especially in rural areas), low levels of student achievement, poor teacher training, and a lack or evaluation and research to help the country improve their education system.

6. <span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">ENROLLMENT Basic education enrollments grew from 9.7 million students in 1970 to 21.6 million students in 2000. This was a substantial and pretty rapid growth. Mexico is accommodating for the growth by shifting around schools and teachers and encouraging distance learning means of learning in lower secondary schools (like our grades 7-9).

The entire education system, including all four levels, enrolls about 31 million students. Enrollment of students in primary schools (grades 1-6) is at 93%; students in secondary schools (grades 7-9) is 86%, students in preschool is 56%, and students in upper secondary schools (grades 10-12) is at 51%. So, these stats mean that out of 100 students who enroll in the first grade of primary school, only 68 of them will finish all nine years included in a basic education, and even worse, only 35 of these initial 100 students will graduate from upper secondary. That’s like only 35% of students graduating from high school! Additionally, only 8 of these 100 students will earn a bachelor’s degree in higher education.

<span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond; msobidifontfamily: Garamond; msofareastfontfamily: Garamond; msolist: Ignore;">7. <span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">ORGANIZATIONS THAT TRY TO HELP SCHOOL SYSTEMS IN MEXICO A government-implemented program called <span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times-Italic; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Oportunidades <span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">(formerly known as PROGRESA) gives low-income familes grants so they can enroll their children in school and provide health services. <span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times-Italic; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Enciclomedia <span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">puts the school curriculum onto advanced technology so students can learn from computers. <span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times-Italic; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Programa Escuelas de Calidad <span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"> (quality schools program) focuses on lower performing school. These schools must implement a reform prjocect. This organizations grants them up to &10,000 to be used for building improvements. SEP has set up a program which is aimed at improving the infrastructure of schools, giving them updated equipment and materials, and providing incentives for teachers and principals to decrease teacher absences and improve school supervision.

<span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond; msobidifontfamily: Garamond; msofareastfontfamily: Garamond; msolist: Ignore;">8. <span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">SCHOOL DAY CHARACTERISTICS <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">The school year includes 200 days of classes usually beginning in the last week of August and ending in the first week of July. Preschoolers go to school for three hours every day (Monday to Friday). Primary school children spend between four and four and a half hours in class each day. Middle school students spend at least seven hours per day in school. There are morning, afternoon, night, and combined class shifts. The official language of Mexican school systems is Spanish. The average class size is 28 students.

<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond; msoansilanguage: EN; msobidifontfamily: Garamond; msofareastfontfamily: Garamond; msolist: Ignore;">9. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">GENDER DISTRIBUTION In the compulsory grades, males and females are almost equally represented with 92 percent males and 91 percent females enrolled. However, in upper grades, more males are enrolled in school, especially in higher education, but there are more women than men in vocational, technical, and teacher education schools.

<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond; msoansilanguage: EN; msobidifontfamily: Garamond; msofareastfontfamily: Garamond; msolist: Ignore;">10. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">BREAKDOWN OF HIGHER EDUCATION <span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Higher education consists of three types: universities, technological colleges, and teacher-training institutes. Although there are more and larger public schools, there are private and public institutions of all three types. However, 80% of students who do participate in a higher education, enroll in public universities and colleges. Each of the 32 states has at least one public college which often times has several campuses in different cities. state has at least one public university, often having campuses in different cities. The largest, with over 100,000 students, is the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City. Teacher-training schools have a four-year curriculum. After earning bachelor’s degrees, most student pursuing a masters go outside of Mexico. follow this link for a pictureof the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City! []

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<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; msobidifontfamily: Arial;">[|www.rand.org/pubs/documented.../2005/RAND_DB480.sum.pdf]

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Zach's Adds In Mexico, some schools have english class in school just like we have spanish class.... wow! In some states, more than 80 languages are spoken within the different ethnic groups. Higher levels are seemed to be overly centererlized by the national government and not enough by the states. Literacy level in mexico is 89.6 Schools are poorly funded and therefore have a crappy school buildings.

__Kayla's Pictures:__

Primary School in Teacapan, Mexico

Public education, officially compulsory for the first six years, is underfunded and rural provision is poor. The average age for student's leaving school is age 14.