The educational reform in Mexico and some public policy lessons

Abstract

t can be said that inefficiency in the spending and the low quality level in public education has been the norm in the case of Mexico. The newest Constitutional Reform carried out by the Mexican government aimed to improve the education sector by introducing some of the most important changes in the educational field in the history of Mexico. According to the official discourse, this reform has two main objectives: 1) to open the way for the State to recover the rectory of education from the hands of unions, and 2) to improve the skills and competencies of teachers through a new scheme of incentives based on the evaluation of their performance. This paper uses an extensive review of the literature to provide the reader with a wider vision about the reforms in the Mexican education sector since the 1950’s, and provides, at the same time, a general overview of the government’s agenda in terms of education. Whether this new reform is going to help improve the education quality for millions of students through the implementation of the New Public Administration is still something unknown since its benefits will be reflected at a medium and long term, with the PISA test being an excellent thermometer to validate theimprovements to the education system. KEYWORDS: Public education, new public administration, Education Reform, organizational change.