Políticas educativas y neoliberalismo en México: 1982-2006

Abstract

During the last twenty-five years, Mexican governments have deployed a series of educational policies that aimed at overcoming the huge backwardness that affects a very large part of the population. They have also tried to meet the goal of transforming education in order to contribute to the nation’s welfare and to make education an instrument of social justice. During this period, efforts have been focused on improving education standards, lowering levels of inequity and coordinating the educative system. In this article we will analyze the educational policies deployed by the last four administrations, along with the two most recent elementary education reforms. The conclusion is that the before mentioned policies and reforms have failed to tackle the disadvantages that affect the education standards of one third of the population. The quality of the educational system is still unsatisfactory: Levels of inequity are still considerably high and coordination is inefficient. In this sense, neoliberal policies have proved to be ineffective at changing the prevailing status quo of the last twenty five years.