Mexico
From WAET
Thomas C. Esakin
Sustainable Development Program - Staffordshire University
Walter Lopez Rivera
Canada Viajes SA De CV - Villahermosa, Tabasco, Mexico
Noemi Rivera Ruedas
Directora (retired), Escuela Secundaria Federal para trabajadores -Puebla, Puebla, Mexico
Michael K. Barbour
Department of Educational Psychology and Instructional Technology - University of Georgia
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Education in Mexico follows an integrated education model that attempts to educate the entire individual including moral, technical, physical, and artistic dimensions. Values-based education includes the teaching of manners and personal hygiene and has evolved in Mexico since pre-Hispanic times. Historically, the Aztecs had both a Calmeac school of art and abilities and a Tepozscalli school of war. Today, since its early creation as the Secretaría de Instrucción Pública y Bellas Artes, the Mexican national educational system has been under the strict control of la Secretaría de Educación Pública (SEP). The government run or public national education system in Mexico is the SEP – with the SEP’s role reflective of the Mexican legal system based on civil law. Civil or Napoleonic law is based upon the concept that everything is illegal except that expressly permitted by law. Translated into an educational context, everything is prohibited except that which is allowed by the SEP. The SEP’s current focus in education for children and youth is on community development, which includes activities such as school based community gardens or – for some rural-based schools – teaching students how to raise poultry or livestock, for example.
The third article of the Constitution of Mexico is about national education; its premise is that education should be mandatory, laica (non-religious) and free. In Mexico, a basic education is mandatory for 10 years, from Jardin de Niños (kindergarten) through to Secundaria (secondary) (i.e., the American equivalent is from K-9), “…but in practice this is largely ignored” (United States Department of Army, 1996a, ¶ 2). As a personal example, the teacher highlighted in the “Case Study” portion of this chapter returned to Mexico for work in the Summer 2006. In his neighborhood, there is one 13 or 14 year old child working as a construction worker (Monday-Saturday during the usual work hours of 10 – 8 except the three hour afternoon break for comida). That is Mexico's reality, where a K-9 education is mandatory in law but not in practice. A place where children work to survive or to help their families survive, such as the many Chaipas children seen juggling for money at stoplights in Villahermosa, Tabasco.
Many schools offer “double shifts” of classes to accommodate a large number of students within a small school facility. Primaria (elementary) shifts can operate from 8:00am to 1:00pm and 1:00pm to 6:00pm, while Secundaria shifts can operate from 7:30am to 1:00pm and 1:30pm to 7:00pm. Preparatoria – equivalent of grades 10 to 12 in North America – is available to all for a nominal annual fee of 100 pesos (approximately $10.00 US at market exchange rates in July 2006) to a maximum of 500 pesos (i.e., $50.00 US) per year. For some families, these fees serve as a substantial barrier to their children attending the final years of high school. Notwithstanding, and in keeping with the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals, the World Bank (2004) predicts Mexico to “achieve universal primary education...by 2015” (¶ 7).
In Mexico, education funding comes from three sources - the federal, state and local levels. The federal government through the SEP funds public school programming, with schools receiving financial support based solely on the number of students registered. Due to student population, schools in rural areas tend to receive the least resources and schools in cities the most. School infrastructure – i.e., school buildings and facilities – is jointly funded by federal and state governments. The actual construction of public schools is the responsibility of the federal government through the SEP. Land for public school infrastructure placement is provided by the local community.
In the State of Puebla, the local government created “Centros Escolares” (school centers) that are unique in the country. These are amalgamated schools that collectively contain pre-school, elementary, secondary, and high school grades. Such amalgamated schools guarantee, based on the higher number of students registered, greater financial contributions from the SEP and, therefore, they generally have most of their educational needs met. These Centros Escolares were based on a German system called “school unification”.
Since the Mexican Revolution of 1910-11 (and sometime after 1920), the SEP has tried to adapt its operations to international educational trends and Mexican social needs. Almost twenty years ago, the SEP moved to a regionalized model, locating offices in each of the 31 states of the Mexican Union and the Districto Federal, as well as working alongside the state’s education department to make school curriculum more appropriate to the local level within each state.
In Mexico, the SEP requires students in all schools - whether attending a public or private institution - to pass national exams in Español (Spanish), matematicas (mathematics), historia (history), geografia (geography), formaciõn civica y etica (civics and ethics), biologia (biology), fisica (physics), quimica (chemistry), and lenguaje extranjero (foreign language, a euphemism for English). Mexico’s national exam standings rank each and every class by comparing their results to all other class results in the country. The class rankings are placed in percentage terms on a scale from 1-100, with 1% reflecting the lowest test scores in the country and 100% representing the best exam scores. The SEP has continuously created reforms in teaching, the materials used at schools, in projects toward amending perceived deficiencies in education and achieving their general objectives. The Mexican educational system utilizes a behavioral versus cognitive approach to education (for an introduction to these to approaches, see “Section 1: Learning and Cognitive Theories (Shorts)” in Orey, 2001). The SEP’s approach to education is most successful at teaching students memorization skills, however its success at teaching critical thinking and problem solving is greatly limited. The ‘linear mind’ that is created from this educational approach is clearly evident to one who has lived with and worked alongside Mexicans of all ages and from diverse walks of life.
Level of Access to Technology
The Instituto Nacional de Estadistica Geografia Informacion (INEGI), which is the national government body in charge of the Mexican census, or national surveys. In the latest survey, conducted in 2004, the level of technology in the home has increased to the current levels illustrated in Table 1.
| Technology | % of Mexican Households | |
|---|---|---|
| Homes with a computer | 18% | |
| Homes with access to the Internet | 8.7% | |
| Homes with a telephone | 47.9% | |
| Homes with a television | 91.7% | |
| Homes with a cell phone | 35.3% |
In fact, over the last three years the usage of computers at home has increased by 70% and annual growth is approximately 32%. When the over 80% of people without home computers were asked why they did not have a computer, there were a variety of responses, as follows in Table 2.
| Reasons Provided | Percentage Response | |
|---|---|---|
| Not enough financial resources | 59.3% | |
| They don't need it | 21.0% | |
| They don't know how to use it | 8.3% | |
| They don't care | 5.3% | |
| Don't know what is useful for | 3.2% | |
| No response | 2.8% |
People in the age range that use the Internet the most were those between the ages of 12 to 17 years old (28%), with the group using computers the least being 55 and older (2.2%). Just over half of those users were male (51.8%), with the remaining 48.2% being female.
Access to Technology in the Mexican Education System
While global changes certainly influence Mexico, the infrastructure required to accommodate such changes often is not in place within the education system. A notable example is the advent of computers and their usage at schools. While the developing world was already using computers in schools, in Mexico the private schools first offered this technology. It was only in 1999 when the first Mexican public school – the Escuela Secundaria Technica No. 4 “Lázaro Cárdenas”, located in Queretaro State – acquired computers through a donation from Compaq Computers (Zedillo, 1999). With globalization, electronic technology has shifted the importance of basic technologies used in Mexican school educational programs. For example, elementary school handicraft programs – particularly those offered in urban centers – that included sewing, origami, macramé, and painting, have been eliminated and replaced by computer training. In secondary schools, computer training has come to replace such programs as auto-mechanics, carpentry, technical drawing, haute couture, beauty, and typewriting skills.
Computer workshops and classes require physical space, human resources, and materials – which many schools in Mexico are not adapted to or do not have the financial resources to provide. This creates a critical inequity between private and public schools in the country. Private schools have the largest financial resources from students’ monthly tuition fees and family donations made through their “society of parents”. Such societies often organize raffles, special fees, dances, cinema nights, and other events to ease the financial requirements of the school. It is common for private schools to have a “society of parents” that meets on a regular basis to discuss school matters. Public schools may have such societies, but they tend only to meet during a financial emergency.
In March 2004, some elementary government schools were able to access a new SEP program called “dotacion de computadoras”, where computers were supplied to schools that applied and qualified for the program (Secretaría de Educacion Publica, 2004a). To qualify, a school had to be of sufficient size to accommodate 18 concurrent morning groups and 18 concurrent afternoon groups of at least 45 students each who would take a computer training course. The school has to have a classroom available to accommodate computer infrastructure and training of this size, along with a teacher who can teach computer skills. Most schools of this size are located in the downtown areas of large urban centers, leaving people in suburban areas, smaller communities, and the rural poor further disadvantaged by fewer computer training opportunities to compete in a digitally based economy.
In Mexico, secondary schools are divided between technical, general, tele-secondaries and schools for workers. Private schools are privately-funded but still fully-governed by the SEP. Secondary technical schools often benefit from government programs, including computer training, as a result of the importance of technical programs. They also show a more disciplined disposition and are willing participants in contests to prove the knowledge attained at their respective schools. These contests have fostered competition amongst the group, resulting in a cyclical increase in government support for more materials and technical assistance as they can continue to improve to higher levels. These schools are highly respected among parents of children in the secondary school system, as many believe such schools will better contribute to a successful future for their children.
Some general secondary schools have received some computers from the federal school system. These schools have morning and evening shifts with an average of twelve hundred students (this is based on the professional educational administrative experience of one of this paper’s co-author, Noemi Rivera Ruedas). Tele-secondaries, often located in rural communities which cannot secure teachers for all school grades, rely upon television and satellite-fed distance education as the main learning tools. Schools have one or two teachers who are responsible for all grade levels and all classes in the school. Such teacher(s) operate the in-class television monitors that relay the SEP satellite-feeds and which provide the formal teaching, monitor all classes, and grade the work of students.
Secondary schools for workers (this paper’s co-author, Noemi Rivera Ruedas, served as the Director of one of these schools), were founded in the 1970’s by Professor Adolfo Ayuso with the philosophy of serving youth that exceeded the general age requirements of schools, usually fifteen years of age or higher. These older students have jobs that assist them or their families with the income required for basic needs. The curriculum for these schools does not include technology classes or sports due to a school schedule providing a reduced school day to accommodate these students’ personal schedules. The schools operate from 7:30 a.m. to 12:50 p.m. Unfortunately this type of school has not benefited from the “dotacion de computadoras” program supplying school computers. Further, these schools are now in the midst of being closed due to increasing absenteeism of students (co-author Rivera Ruedas has professionally observed that, as a means to sustain their basic needs, worker students often prefer to work double shifts in the marketplace, working in construction jobs, on plantations, in bread making, as merchants or even trying to achieve the American Dream by intending to be “mojados” and crossing the frontier to the United States.) The majority of students at these schools are those who have been pushed out of other schools within the Mexican system for a variety of reasons.
In June 2004, the SEP and fifteen states in Mexico launched a program called Renovacion Integral de Escuelas Secundarias or Integral Renovation of Secondary Schools (RIES). This program was designed to bridge the gap between a developed world level of education through a pedagogic innovation by re-organizing the public secondary schools in participating states. The curriculum is to be based on a cognitive approach to education (See here a good discussion of the constructivist theory that this approach is based upon), providing students with skills to learn “how” to think. There are incentives for “quality schools” and scholarships called “Becas de oportunidades” that provide a token monetary allowance for students and their parents as a means to encourage child attendance at school, covering medical services for the full family, and alleviating expenses on transportation, food, clothing, and some basic costs at home. There is also the “Red Edusat, la red satelital de television educativa” initiative, where schools will be provided with monitors for students to receive national education via satellite, with programming involving eight educational channels including Discovery Kids in Spanish. These new programs are supposed to encourage parental involvement as helpers with teachers in the Mexican education system, with students still retaining the main responsibility for their own educational formation, their life direction and preparation.
References
Instituto Nacional de Estadistica Geografia Informacion. (2006a). Resultado de la búsqueda en el Índice temático. Aguascalientes: Author. Retrieved on 12 April 2006 from http://www.inegi.gob.mx/lib/buscador/busqueda.asp?whichpage=1&pagesize=10 &texto=computadora &tipo=1&s=est&seccionB=it&noReg=1
Instituto Nacional de Estadistica Geografia Informacion. (2006b). Hogares que no cuentan con computadora por principales razones, 2001 a 2005. Aguascalientes: Author. Retrieved on 12 April 2006 from http://www.inegi.gob.mx/est/contenidos/espanol/rutinas/ept.asp?t=tinf197&c=5584
Orey, M. (2001). Emerging perspectives on teaching, learning, and technology. Retrieved April 5, 2005 from http://www.coe.uga.edu/epltt
Secretaría de Educacion Publica (2004a). Iniciará dotación de 250 mil computadoras a maestros de primaria y secundaria del país. Retrieved on 28 July 2006 from http://www.sep.gob.mx/wb2/sep/sep_Bol1030304
Secretaría de Educacion Publica (2006). Dirección General de Planeación y Programación. Retrieved on 28 July 2006 from http://www.sep.gob.mx/work/appsite/cct/nec.htm
United States Department of Army. (1996a). Country studies / Area handbook program -Mexico –Education. Washington, DC: Library of Congress. Retrieved on 06 April 2005 from http://www.country-studies.com/mexico/education.html
World Bank (2004). Mexico country brief. Washington, DC: Author. Retrieved on 06 April 2005 from http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/LACEXT/MEXICOEXTN/0,, menuPK:338407~pagePK:141132~piPK:141107~theSitePK:338397,00.html
Zedillo, E. (1999). Speech notes: Versión estenográfica de las palabras del presidente Ernesto Zedillo, al inaugurar el "Aula de Medios" donada por Compaq a la Escuela Secundaria Técnica No. 4 "Lázaro Cárdenas", de este municipio. Mexico City: Sistema Internet de la Presidencia – Mexico. Retrieved 28 July 2006 from http://zedillo.presidencia.gob.mx/pages/disc/sep99/30sep99-1.html
Notes
- Federal = Federally-run SEP-approved public schools, Estatal = State-run SEP-approved public schools, Particular = SEP-approved private schools (Secretaría, 2006)
Case Studies
Villahermosa
Discusses the case of a school in the city of Villahermosa located in the state of Tabasco.
About the authors
| Thomas C. Esakin has a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Philosophy from Simon Fraser University, has taken graduate studies in Political Studies from the University of Saskatchewan and is currently finishing his Master's of Arts in Sustainable Development from Staffordshire University. Tom taught at the Colegio Ingles, in Villahermosa, Tabasco. Previous to this, Tom spent nine years in the Canadian non-governmental organization sector, including as Executive Director of JUMP Math - a national math education charity. Prior to this Tom was a political aide and organizer for over ten years. |  |
| A citizen of both Mexico and Canada, Walter Lopez Rivera received a Bachelor of Science from the Universidad Autonoma de Guadalajara in Mexico. Walter has also studies in English, media relations and marketing at post-secondary institutions in both Vancouver and Toronto. Since Summer 2004, he has been invited to join a number of business partnerships in Mexico, including a retail enterprise in Villahermosa that offers English language training packages in Canada; an educational consortium involving Canadian and Mexican concerns that pursued sustainable development projects in the Mexican oil sector in Tabasco; and the opening of a chain of retail clothing stores. |  |
| Noemi Rivera Ruedas, a citizen of Mexico, was employed in the Mexican education system for 40 years, having retired in June 2005. In her last three years working in the profession, she served as Directora of the Escuela Secundaria Federal para Trabajadores N.Y. “24 de Febrero” in Puebla, Puebla, Mexico. She has degrees in: Profesora en Educacion Primaria (Teacher in Primary Education) from the Instituto Normal Mexico in Puebla; Maestra con Especialidad en Biologia (Teacher with a Speciality in Biology) from the Normal Superior del Estado de Puebla; Licenciada en Psicologia (BA in Psychology) from the Benemerita Universidad Autonoma de Puebla; and a Maestria en Orientacion Familiar (Masters in Family Orientation) from the Universidade Iberoamericana de Puebla. |  |
| In his final year of doctoral studies at the time this chapter was published, Michael K. Barbour is completing his Ph.D. in Instructional Technology at the University of Georgia. Originally from Newfoundland, Canada, Michael has completed his Bachelor and Master's of Education from Memorial University of Newfoundland after having finished his Bachelor of Arts (Honors) in Political Science from Carleton University. A classroom teacher for five years, Michael is interested in the use of web-based distance education a way to provide equitable access to mandated curriculum in rural school settings. |  |
Citation
APA Citation: Esakin, T. C, Rivera, W. L., Ruedas, N. R., Barbour, M. K. (2006). Mexico. In M. Orey, T. Amiel, & J. McClendon (Eds.), The world almanac of educational technologies. Retrieved <insert date>, from http://www.waet.uga.edu/
