Marissa Zebaduapublicó una nota 7 years ago

Schools in Mexico

Schools have been in Mexico for quite a while. The first university in Mexico (1551) was even established before the Harvard University. However, the first universities were ruled by the Catholic Church and only for men. Around 1920, liberals sought to put education in the hands of the state rather than the Roman Catholic Church and started an expansive Education policy for everyone. It is 2016 and we are still fighting for people to go to school, although it is mandatory and the law says all Mexican children should go to school, reality is totally different.

The first mandatory program is kindergarten. Children should start kinder 1 when they are 3 years old. Kindergarten (Preescolar) goes from 1st grade to 3rd. Grade. Then, we have Elementary School (La escuela Primaria) There are 6 grades. Students must be 6 years old when entering first grade. After Elementary school, students go to Middle School, there they have 1st. grade, second grade, and third grade.

Until 2010 Elementary and Middle School were only the mandatory levels of education, so people stopped studying at that level, even earlier. High school is nowadays mandatory but, many people only go just to middle school and that is extremely sad.

There a many types of high school, there are many who have the regular curricular but there also other schools that offer a "technical program" which means that even if the students do not go to universities after high school they can incorporate to work life with a technical formation.

Students in many urban public schools were uniforms. The use of "uniforms" was not to be cool or anything. It was established so people from different social status or classes would not look different but "uniform". However, there are so many schools in rural areas that were students cannot afford buying uniforms and wear regular clothes. In rural areas, students need to walk to go to school and the level of education in Mexico is low.

Also, in many public schools, there are entrance exams, I know even when the school is for everyone and the school mandatory, the entrance exam is ridiculous, isn't it?. Normally, it is not possible to "deny" the school service just because, but many schools use the exams as filter for the students they get. (They could use the argument, that they are full) Usually well-known schools use this system. As many things in Mexico, the process to get in might get dirty, I mean there might be corruption there. So, many good students might not have the opportunity to get in because a person with good influence took his/her place.

In Mexico, we also have three types of schools: Morning schools, afternoon schools and evening schools. Afternoon schools are for students who might work in the mornings or students who did not have a chance to enter in a morning schools. Usually, evening schools for students who work in the mornings or had a problem to get in the other school systems. Evening schools are becoming less every year and some of them are transforming themselves in an afternoon school.

The school grading system in basic education goes from 5 to 10, where 5 is a failure note and 10 is the highest note.

How is the school system in your country?