Countries across the OECD and beyond are implementing reforms to build education systems that combine excellence with equity. They are aiming to go beyond traditional skills and to help students develop a new set of skills for a more challenging, digital and multicultural world. Today, education systems should focus on nurturing new values, self-awareness, sensitivity and a better understanding of the need to build a more human world. They should also empower students with new competencies to be able to tackle change, to develop and use new technologies, and to thrive in a highly interconnected world. At the same time, it is crucial to focus on the development of social, emotional and critical thinking, teamwork, openness, empathy, tolerance and intercultural understanding in order to build democratic and respectful societies. These are some of the complex challenges faced by Mexico and many other countries.

Mexico has taken important steps to improve the coverage and quality of its education system and is moving from a system that is driven by inputs and numbers towards one based on quality of education, and more focused on student learning. To progress further on this path, it is important for the Mexican education system to continue investing efforts in strengthening the delivery of basic education in its schools with the goal of improving student learning. This report presents an assessment of the country’s education reforms in light of international evidence, remaining challenges and possible next steps to achieve the consolidation of a system that delivers educational improvement.

This chapter provides an overview of Mexico’s education system and its context. While the Mexican economy has experienced an important transformation since the 1980s, social inequalities prevail across the country. The education system can contribute to tackle them and provide a better future for Mexico. Mexico has a large and complex education system that caters to almost 26 million students in basic education, with diverse backgrounds and an indigenous population speaking more than 64 different languages. The system is characterised by complex governance arrangements and a large teaching workforce working across more than 225 000 schools. Comprehensive evaluation and assessment practices were recently developed. Student learning has improved since 2000 but it still stands below the OECD average. Recent reforms aim to target equity, adapt to the globalised environment of the 21st century, improve student learning and well-being, construct a professional teaching career and support schools. For the system to deliver high-quality education to all students, it will need to continue building from these foundations.

This chapter discusses recent policy developments to enhance both quality and equity in education for all students in the country. It presents and discusses general and targeted policies, such as those providing universal access to education, or more targeted measures to support disadvantaged students and population groups, as well as investments in school infrastructure. It assesses the extent to which these align to international good practice and have contributed to greater equity in education. After reviewing remaining challenges, it provides policy insights that can help Mexico to continue on its path to close the equity gap in education and raise its overall quality.

This chapter analyses the recent curricular reform introduced in the Mexican education system, which focuses on delivering 21st century knowledge and skills to Mexican students. It presents the main characteristics of the new curriculum, its content and the tools that schools and teachers have to adapt to students’ specific needs. It reviews the curriculum reform process and provides a set of recommendations in terms of remaining challenges, especially on how the curriculum can reach schools and classrooms and how schools, their leaders and teachers can best be supported to implement it.

This chapter analyses education reforms adopted by Mexico from 2012 focused on strengthening the quality of the teaching profession and schools to enhance quality and equity in education provision. The chapter describes and reviews the teacher professional service (Servicio Profesional Docente) and the School at the Centre strategy (La Escuela al Centro) as the two main pillars to support better learning for all students in Mexican schools. It concludes with a set of insights on how these policies can best reach schools and have a positive impact on student learning.

This chapter discusses the role that evaluation and assessment practices have in supporting student learning, schools and the education system in Mexico. In particular, this chapter reviews efforts towards increasing and establishing evaluation and assessment processes at the national level with a National System (SNEE) underpinned by the INEE and the SEP; the contribution that the National Plan for Students’ Learning Evaluations PLANEA can have in bringing the benefits of standardised student assessments results in the classroom; and the substantial progress Mexico has made in gathering data and information for guiding policy makers, educational actors and the general public in education policy. The chapter concludes with recommendations for future policy development to enhance the contribution of evaluation and assessment practices to student learning and the operation of schools.

Overall, Mexico’s curriculum reform design aligns to best international practices and to the vision the country set for its education system. The efforts to engage with stakeholders from diverse corners of the education system in a consultation to elaborate the curriculum are commendable and contribute to a high-quality curriculum, while the education authorities proved extremely skilful at managing large-scale projects such as the production of new instructional material on a tight schedule.