México’s Educational Reform and the Reshaping of Accountability on Teachers’ Development and Work

Mexico is a country with more than 104 million habitants organized as a Federal Republic with 32 states and a federal district which serves as its capital. Since the Political Constitution was enacted in 1917 the Mexican government has endeavoured to fulfil its educational mandate: that education be free of charge, secular, of a national nature and obligatory (this includes pre-school, primary and lower secondary education). This responsibility falls to the Secretariat of Public Education (Secretaría de Educación Pública or SEP), which also oversees the initial training and continuing education of basic education teachers. In spite of the ongoing decentralization reform, the SEP still maintains central control over the national syllabi and curricula, the school calendar, the content and design of the free textbooks and the regulation of private schools. As of 2004, the SEP still regulated the national system of teacher training and upgrading, the study plans and programs, and its evaluation systems.