Ten Years After the National Accord for the Modernization of Basic Education in Mexico: Challenges, Tensions and Perspectives

Abstract

By means of the National Accord for the Modernization of Basic Education (1992), the Mexican Educational System (MES) entered into a complex reform. Unlike the previous reforms, this one decentralized the system, renewed the curriculum, produced new materials and introduced compensation programs and new methods of financing and evaluation. Junior high school was made obligatory, and the school calendar was amplified. This reform has revealed the MES’s accumulated deficiencies and fatigue, so that it seems impossible to achieve the goals of quality and equity. This essay presents a critical analysis of some elements that characterize the MES at the end of the twentieth century. It focuses on the reasons for the decentralization and the educational reform; on the challenges and tensions facing the system, and especially, it approaches the theme of institutional management and delineates a proposal for its transformation.

Keywords

• Política educativa
• sistemas educativos
• reforma educativa.