Programmable spending on education in Mexico

Mexico‘s government spent 836.4 billion nominal pesos (or 14.7% of programmable spending) on education in 2022.

Overall, the government devotes a significant portion of its resources to education and vocational training.

To encourage the under-18 population, especially those in extreme poverty, to continue their studies, the government created the Benito Juárez National Welfare Scholarship Program and built Benito Juárez García Welfare Universities, higher education centers that offer university degrees in areas of high population density with no previous opportunities for university studies.

During the past year, 74% of the 44,300 basic education schools benefited from the program used the resources allocated by the program, and more than 5.8 million secondary education students and 546,000 higher education students benefited from scholarships.

Education

According to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, published by the World Bank, approximately 95.2% of the Mexican population aged 15 and over was literate in 2020.

The structure of the Mexican education system is based on the concept of «educational federalism,» with the underlying premise that federal and local governments share responsibility for education.

A constitutional reform to the education system, effective as of May 15, 2019, established that the government, including the federal, state and municipal levels, will provide and guarantee initial education (up to age six) and higher education (university level).

The reform also established the right of teachers to access comprehensive training and diagnostic evaluation systems.

The reform replaced the National Institute for the Evaluation of Education with the National System for the Continuous Improvement of Education, which will be coordinated by a decentralized public agency that has operational and budgetary autonomy.

Following the educational reforms of May 2019, several new laws were approved on September 30, 2019, including the General Education Law, Regulatory Law of Article 3o of the Political Constitution of the United Mexican States, in the area of Continuous Improvement of Education and General Law of the System for the Career of Teachers.

The objectives of these laws include improved access to education, the improvement of educational systems and the support and training of teachers.