I’ve been reading a lot of material on education, specifically higher-education, in Mexico. Some of the statistics are pretty surprising:
The Mexican education system is organized into four levels: preschool (K1–K3), compulsory basic education (grades 1–9), upper secondary education (grades 10–12), and higher education. The government is only officially responsible for providing compulsory basic education.
Enrollment rates [show] that out of every 100 students entering the first
grade of primary school in Mexico, around 68 of them will complete all nine years of basic education. Thirty-five of these will go on to graduate from upper secondary. And only slightly more than 8 percent of the population aged 18 and older in Mexico holds a bachelor’s degree.
In 2002, Mexico graduated a total of 1,250 Ph.D. students in all disciplines. For comparison, in 2002, U.S. institutions of higher education awarded 6,700 Ph.D. degrees in education alone.
(via Rand Corporation)
So Mexico requires/provides 3 less years of schooling than the US and even then 1/3 of the Mexican population will drop out of school before completing 9th grade (compared to 84% of Americans completing 12th grade). Only 8% of the adult population in Mexico has a college education (compared to about 27% in the US).
It makes me thankful for the quantity and quality of education that I received by default just because I was born in the US. It also makes me wonder what Mexico would be like if the number of college graduates in their workforce increased to 27%.
We are going to do our part to work towards that goal…
