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Framework Service Contract No EAC/02/10
EAC/C.4/JC/DL D(2011) 1109949; 18 October 2011
1
Final ReportComparative Study between the EU and Mexico on the
challenges brought about by the internationalisation of higher
education and the transparency tools developed on both sides to
facilitate mobility and academic cooperation
30 September 2012
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF
ACRONYMS.........................................................................................................................................3
METHODOLOGICAL
INTRODUCTION..............................................................................................................10
I. THE MEXICAN HIGHER EDUCATION
SYSTEM...............................................................................................12
1. GOVERNMENTAL RESPONSIBILITY IN THE GOVERNANCE OF HIGHER
EDUCATION
...............................................................122.
HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS AND
NETWORKS...................................................................................................16
3. CURRENT PRIORITIES IN MEXICAN HIGHER EDUCATION POLICY
.....................................................................................234.
MEXICAN HIGHER EDUCATION AND
INTERNATIONALISATION........................................................................................29
ASSURANCE AND TRANSPARENCY TOOLS MEXICAN EDUCATION
..............................34II. QUALITY IN HIGHER
1. OVERALL STRUCTURE OF THE MEXICAN QUALITY ASSURANCE SYSTEM
...........................................................................34
1.1. Procedures and agencies in Mexican quality
assurance........................................................................34
1.2. International university
rankings...........................................................................................................38
1.3. Mexicos participation in Latin Americas quality
assurance.................................................................39
2. TOOLS FOR TRANSPARENCY IN CREDIT RECOGNITION AND
QUALIFICATIONS.....................................................................41
2.1. Recognition of foreign credentials (Revalidacin)
.................................................................................42
2.2. Credit system and credit transfer
..........................................................................................................452.3.
Recognition of Prior Learning
................................................................................................................462.4.
Diploma Supplement
............................................................................................................................
47
3. RECENT MEASURES TO CONSOLIDATEMEXICOS QA AND TRANSPARENCY
TOOLS
............................................................46 3.1.
Recent developments in Quality Assurance: the COCOEES
...................................................................463.2.
The SEPs new agenda for transparency in higher
education................................................................49
III. HIGHER EDUCATION COOPERATION AND MOBILITY BETWEEN THE EU
AND MEXICO55
1. FRAMEWORK FOR EU-MEXICAN HIGHER EDUCATION
COOPERATION/MOBILITY
..............................................................55
1.1. Strategic Partnership between the EU and Latin America and the
Caribbean (LAC).............................56
1.2. The EU-Mexico Strategic
Partnership....................................................................................................58
1.3. Cooperation between Mexico and individual EU countries
...................................................................61
2. MAPPING
............................................................................................OF
MOBILITY AND COLLABORATIVE ACTIVITIES 62 2.1. Mobility flows
between Mexico and the EU
..........................................................................................622.2.
Collaborative projects and activities
.....................................................................................................64
3. THE EXPERIENCE OFMEXICAN AND EUROPEAN PARTICIPANTS
.....................................................................................70
3.1. Experience with Quality Assurance
.......................................................................................................713.2.
Experience with credits and
recognition................................................................................................72
3.3. Experience with qualification frameworks
............................................................................................743.4.
Other relevant experience
.....................................................................................................................75
IV. FINDINGS AND
RECOMMENDATIONS.......................................................................................................76
1. MAIN FINDINGS
.................................................................................................................................................76
2. RECOMMENDATIONS
..........................................................................................................................................78
BIBLIOGRAPHY..............................................................................................................................................82
ANNEX: CASE STUDIES OF 15 EU MEMBER STATES
........................................................................................84
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LIST OF ACRONYMS
1. English acronyms
Englishacronym
English Spanish translation
ACA Academic CooperationAssociation
Asociacin de Cooperacin Acadmica
APEC Asia-Pacific EconomicCooperation
Foro de Cooperacin Econmica Asia-Pacfico
APL Accreditation of Prior Learning Acreditacin de aprendizaje
previoBFUG Bologna Follow-up Group Grupo de Seguimiento del Proceso
de
BoloniaCHEPS Centre for Higher Education
Policy StudiesCentro de Estudios sobre Polticas deEducacin
Superior
CODOC Cooperation on DoctoralEducation between Africa,
Asia,Latin America and Europe
Cooperacin en Educacin Doctoralentre frica, Asia, Amrica Latina
yEuropa
CONAHEC Consortium for North AmericanHigher Education
Collaboration
Consorcio para la Colaboracin de laEducacin Superior en Amrica
delNorte
CSP Country Strategic Paper Documento de Estrategia PasDG
Directorate-General Direccin GeneralEAIE European Association
for
International EducationAsociacin Europea para la
EducacinInternacional
ECA European Consortium forAccreditation
Consorcio Europeo de Acreditacin
ECTS European Credit TransferSystem
Sistema Europeo de Transferencia deCrditos
EFMD European Foundation forManagement Development
Fundacin Europea para el Desarrollode la Gestin
EHEA European Higher EducationArea
Espacio Europeo de Educacin Superior(EEES)
ELGATE European-Latin AmericanUniversity Cooperation Gate
Puerta de Cooperacin Universitariaentre Europa y Amrica
Latina
ENHSA European Network of Heads ofSchools of Architecture
Red Europea de Decanos de Facultadesde Arquitectura
ENQA European Association forQuality Assurance in
HigherEducation
Asociacin Europea para la Garanta dela Calidad de la Educacin
Superior
EQF European QualificationsFramework
Marco Europeo de Cualificaciones
EQAR European Quality AssuranceRegister for Higher Education
Registro Europeo de Calidad para laEducacin Superior
ESMU European Centre for StrategicManagement of Universities
Centro Europeo para la GestinEstratgica de las Universidades
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EU European Union Unin EuropeaEU27 European Union of 27
Member
StatesUnin Europea de 27 EstadosMiembros
EU32 EU27 + Switzerland, Iceland,Liechtenstein, Norway,
Turkey
UE27 + Suiza, Islandia, Liechtenstein,Noruega, Turqua
EUA European UniversityAssociation
Asociacin Europea de Universidades
EU-STEP Study Tour European HigherEducation Programme
Programa de Viajes de Estudioreferidos a la Educacin
SuperiorEuropea
GER Gross Enrolment Ratio Cociente de Matrcula NetaGDP Gross
Domestic Product Producto Interno BrutoHEI Higher Education
Institution Institucin de Educacin SuperiorIIE Institute of
International
EducationInstituto de Educacin Internacional
INQAAHE International Network forQuality Assurance Agencies
inHigher Education
Red Internacional de Agencias para elAseguramiento de la Calidad
de la Educacin Superior
ISCED International StandardClassification of Education
Clasificacin Internacional Normalizada de la Educacin
ISEKI Integrating Safety andEnvironment Knowledge InFood towards
EuropeanSustainable Development
Integrando Conocimientos deSeguridad y Medio Ambiente
enAlimentos hacia un DesarrolloSostenible Europeo
LAC Latin America and Caribbean Amrica Latina y el
CaribeMOVINTER Enhancing Virtual Mobility to
foster Institutional Cooperationand Internationalisation
ofCurricula
Mejora de la Movilidad Virtual para promover la Cooperacin
Institucionaly la Internacionalizacin de los Planesde Estudios
NAFSA Association of InternationalEducators (1948-1964
NationalAssociation of Foreign Student Advisers; 1964-1990
NationalAssociation for Foreign Student Affairs)
Asociacin de EducadoresInternacionales (1948-1964
AsociacinNacional de Asesores de EstudiantesInternacionales;
1984-1990 AsociacinNacional de Asuntos de
EstudiantesInternacionales)
NAFTA North American Free TradeAgreement
Tratado de Libre Comercio de Amrica del Norte
NARIC National Academic RecognitionInformation Centre
Centro Nacional de Informacin deReconocimiento Acadmico
NETACTIVE Network AIESAD-EADTU Credit Transfer In Virtual and
distanceEducation
Red AIESAD-EADTU Transferencia deCrditos en Educacin Virtual y
aDistancia
NUFFIC Netherlands UniversitiesFoundation for
InternationalCooperation
Fundacin Universitaria de los PasesBajos para la Cooperacin
Internacional
NQF National QualificationsFramework
Marco Nacional de Cualificaciones
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NTC National Tuning Centre Centro Nacional TuningOECD
Organisation for Economic Co-
operation and DevelopmentOrganizacin para la Cooperacin y
elDesarrollo Econmico
PISA Programme for InternationalStudent Assessment
Programa para la EvaluacinInternacional de los Estudiantes
PPP Purchasing Power Parity Paridad del Poder AdquisitivoPROFLEX
The Flexible Professional in the
Knowledge SocietyEl Profesional Flexible en la Sociedaddel
Conocimiento
QA Quality Assurance Aseguramiento de la CalidadRPL Recognition
of Prior Learning Reconocimiento del Aprendizaje PrevioSEFI
European Society for
Engineering EducationSociedad Europea para la Formacin
deIngenieros
UK United Kingdom Reino UnidoUNESCO United Nations
Educational,
Scientific and CulturalOrganization
Organizacin de las Naciones Unidaspara la Educacin, la Ciencia y
la Cultura
UNICA Network of Universities fromthe Capitals of Europe
Red de Universidades de las Capitalesde Europa
UOE UNESCO Institute of Statistics /OECD / Eurostat
(StatisticalOffice of the European Union)
UNESCO Instituto de Estadsticas /OCDE / Eurostat (Oficina
Estadstica dela Unin Europea)
US United States Estados UnidosUSA United States of America
Estados Unidos de AmricaUSD United States Dollar Dlar de los
Estados Unidos
2. Spanish acronyms
Spanishacronym
Spanish English translation
ALBAN Amrica Latina Becas de AltoNivel
High level scholarships to LatinAmerica
ALC Amrica Latina y el Caribe Latin America and CaribbeanALCUE
rea Comn de Educacin
Superior entre Amrica Latina,el Caribe y la Unin Europea
Common Area of Higher Educationbetween Latin America, the
Caribbeanand the European Union
ALFA Amrica Latina FormacinAcadmica
Latin America Academic Training
ALPES Alianza por la EducacinSuperior
Higher Education Alliance
AMPEI Asociacin Mexicana para la Educacin Internacional
Mexican Association for InternationalEducation
ANUIES Asociacin Nacional deUniversidades e Institucionesde
Educacin Superior
National Association of Universitiesand Higher Education
Institutions
ANUP Asociacin Nacional deUniversidades Politcnicas
National Association of TechnicalUniversities
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ANUT Asociacin Nacional deUniversidades Tecnolgicas
National Association of TechnologicalUniversities
ARCU-SUR Acreditacin Regional deCarreras Universitarias para
elMERCOSUR
Regional Accreditation of UniversityDegrees for MERCOSUR
ASEAN Asociacin de Naciones del Sudeste Asitico
Association of Southeast Asian Nations
ASCUN Asociacin Colombiana deUniversidades
Colombian Association of Universities
CAT Complemento al Ttulo Diploma SupplementCELAC Comunidad de
Estados de
Latinoamrica y el CaribeCommunity of Latin American andCaribbean
States
CENEVAL Centro Nacional de Evaluacinpara la Educacin
Superior
National Evaluation Center for HigherEducation
CIDE Centro de Investigacin yDocencia Econmicas
Center for Research and Teaching inEconomics
CIEES Comits Interinstitucionalespara la Evaluacin de la
Educacin Superior
Inter-institutional Committees for theEvaluation of Higher
Education
CINDA Centro Interuniversitario deDesarrollo
Interuniversity Development Center
COCOEES Comisin de Coordinacin delos Organismos de Evaluacinde
la Educacin Superior
Commission for the Coordination ofHigher Education
EvaluationOrganisations
COEPES Comisin Estatal dePlanificacin de la EducacinSuperior
State Commission for Higher EducationPlanning
CONACYT Consejo Nacional de Ciencia yTecnologa
National Council of Science andTechnology
CONAEVA Comisin Nacional deEvaluacin de la EducacinSuperior
National Commission for theEvaluation of Higher Education
COPAES Consejo para la Acreditacin de la Educacin Superior
Council for the Accreditation of HigherEducation
COREDIAL Convenio Regional deConvalidacin de Estudios,Ttulos y
Diplomas deEducacin Superior enAmrica Latina y el Caribe
Regional Convention on theRecognition of Studies, Diplomas
andDegrees in Higher Education in LatinAmerica and the
Caribbean
CUIB Consejo UniversitarioIberoamericano
Iberoamerican University Council
CUMEX Consorcio de UniversidadesMexicanas
Consortium of Mexican Universities
CUPRIA Consejo de UniversidadesParticulares e
InstitucionesAfines
Council of Private Universities andSimilar Institutions
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DGAIR Direccin General deAcreditacin, Incorporacin
yRevalidacin
General Directorate of Accreditation,Incorporation and
Revalidation
DF Distrito Federal Federal DistrictDRA. Doctora DoctorECEST
Espacio Comn de Educacin
Superior TecnolgicoCommon Area of Technological
HigherEducation
EGEL Examen General de Egreso deLicenciatura
General Examination for theUndergraduate Degree
ENLACES Espacio de encuentrolatinoamericano y caribeo deeducacin
superior
Latin American and Caribbean HigherEducation Area
EXANI Examen Nacional de Ingreso National Examination for
AdmissionFIMPES Federacin de Instituciones
Mexicanas Particulares deEducacin Superior
Federation of Mexican Private HigherEducation Institutions
FLACSO Facultad Latinoamericana deCiencias Sociales
Latin American Faculty of SocialSciences
IES Institucin de EducacinSuperior
Higher Education Institution
IESALC Instituto internacional para la Educacin Superior
enAmerica Latina y el Caribe
International Institute for HigherEducation in Latin America and
theCaribbean
INFOACES Sistema Integral deInformacin sobre lasInstituciones de
EducacinSuperior de Amrica Latina para el rea Comn deEducacin
Superior conEuropa
Integral Information System on HigherEducation Institutions in
Latin America for a Common Area of HigherEducation with Europe
INNOVAPYME Programa de Apoyo a la Innovacin Tecnolgica deAlto
Valor Agregado
Programme to support High ValueAdded Technological
Innovation
INNOVATEC Programa de InnovacinTecnolgica para la
Competitividad
Technological Innovation forCompetitiveness Programme
IPN Instituto Politcnico Nacional National Technical
InstituteITAM Instituto Tecnolgico
Autnomo de MxicoAutonomous Technological Institute ofMexico
ITESM Instituto Tecnolgico y deEstudios Superiores
deMonterrey
Monterrey Institute of Technology andHigher Education
LIC. Licenciado/Licenciada Holder of a university
degree(Licenciatura)
MERCOSUR Mercado Comn del Sur Common Market of the South
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MESALC Mapa de la EducacinSuperior en Amrica Latina yel
Caribe
Map of Higher Education in LatinAmerica and the Caribbean
MEXA Mecanismo Experimental deAcreditacin Regional
delMERCOSUR
Experimental Mechanism of RegionalAccreditation within
MERCOSUR
MTRO. Maestro Holder of a Master DegreeOBREAL Observatorio de
las
Relaciones Unin Europea Amrica Latina
Observatory on EU-Latin AmericanRelations
PAN Partido Accin Nacional National Action PartyPIFI Programa
Integral de
Fortalecimiento InstitucionalComprehensive Programme
forInstitutional Strengthening
PNPC Programa Nacional dePosgrados de Calidad
National Programme for High QualityPostgraduate Studies
PRI Partido RevolucionarioInstitucional
Institutional Revolutionary Party
PROINNOVA Programe de Desarrollo eInnovacin en
TecnologasPrecursoras
Programme of Development andInnovation in Precursor
Technologies
PROMEP Programa de Mejoramientodel Profesorado
Programme for the Improvement ofTeaching Staff
RIACES Red Iberoamericana para la Acreditacin de la Calidad dela
Educacin Superior
Iberoamerican Network for theAccreditation of Higher
EducationQuality
RODAC Registro Oficial deDocumentos Acadmicos
Official Register of AcademicDocumentos
RSA Reconocimiento de SaberesAdquiridos
Recognition of Prior Knowledge
RVOE Reconocimiento de Validez Oficial de Estudios
Recognition of Official Validity ofStudies
SATCA Sistema de Asignacin yTransferencia de
CrditosAcadmicos
System of Assignment and Transfer ofAcademic Credits
SEES Subsistema para Evaluar la Educacin Superior
Subsystem for Higher EducationEvaluation
SEM Sector Educativo delMercosur
Mercosur Education Sector
SEP Secretara de EducacinPblica
Secretariat of Public Education
SES Subsecretara de EducacinSuperior
Subsecreatariat of Higher Education
SICA Sistema de CrditosAcadmicos
Academic Credit System
SINCREE Sistema Nacional de Crditos,Revalidacin y Equivalencia
deEstudios
National System of Credits,Recognition and Equivalency of
Studies
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SNEAS Sistema Nacional deEvaluacin y Acreditacin dela Educacin
Superior
National System of Higher EducationEvaluation and
Accreditation
SNI Sistema Nacional deInvestigadores
National System of Researchers
TSU Tcnico Superior Universitario Holder of a Higher Technician
DiplomaUAM-A Universidad Autnoma
Metropolitana deAzcapotzalco
Autonomous Metropolitan UniversityAzcapotzalco
UDLAP Universidad de las AmricasPuebla
University of the Americas Puebla
UE Unin Europea European UnionUEALC 6x4 Unin Europea, Amrica
Latina y Caribe: seisprofesiones en cuatro ejes deanlisis
European Union, Latin America and theCarribean: six professions
in four axesaxis of analysis
UNAM Universidad NacionalAutnoma de Mxico
National Autonomous University ofMexico
UPV Universidad Politcnica deValencia
Technical University of Valencia
VALUE Vinculacin y valorizacinmutua entre Universidades deAmrica
Latina y de la UninEuropea
Links and mutual valorisation amongLatin American and
EuropeanUniversities
VertebrALCUE Condiciones de viabilidad para un modelo
vertebrador en elrea Comn de EducacinSuperior entre LatinoAmrica,
El Caribe y la UninEuropea
Feasibility conditions for avertebrating model for the
CommonArea of Higher Education betweenLatin America, the Caribbean
and theEuropean Union
3. Acronyms in other languages
Acronym Original language English translation Spanish
translationDAAD (German)
DeutscherAkademischerAustauschdienst
German AcademicExchange Service
Servicio Alemn deIntercambio Acadmico
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METHODOLOGICAL INTRODUCTION
This study has been carried out by ESMU and ECORYS for the
European Commission (DGEducation and Culture) within the framework
of the Policy Dialogue between theCommission and Mexico. It is
based on extensive desk research on higher education inMexico and
in the EU and its Member States, a series of interviews with
stakeholders onboth sides, and invaluable input from Mexican
officials and experts.
The present report owes an enormous deal to the exceptional
cooperation with, and thecontributions received from Mexican
colleagues. Our thanks go in particular:
- to the Federal Ministry of Education of Mexico (Secretara de
Educacin Pblica SEP), especially to the Directorate General for
Accreditation, Authorisation andRecognition (Direccin General de
Acreditacin, Incorporacin y Revalidacin DGAIR); Mtro. Guillermo
Pablo Lpez Andrade, Director General of DGAIR, is also arecognised
international expert in quality assurance in higher education;
among staffmembers of DGAIR who have also made substantial
contributions to this report, inparticular Lic. Juan Ramn Nieto
Quezada, Lic. Isaac Bueno Peralta y Lic. Karina Cisneros
Merlin;
- to the Universidad de las Amricas Puebla (UDLAP), one of
Mexicos most internationalised universities, especially to Dr.
Diana Debora Bank Guzmn, who wasappointed by the DGAIR for the
purpose of the preparation of the present report,and to the team of
researchers who worked with her (Dr. Elizabeth Salamanca Pacheco,
Dr. Elizabeth Espinoza Monroy and Dr. Rocio Duran Vazquez).
We wish to express to both Guillermo and Diana and her
colleagues our warmest thanks fortheir interest, their constant
availability and responsiveness and their impressive expertise.
The desk research on Mexico involved an in-depth review of
documents and websitesrelating to Mexico, its higher education
system, institutions and policies and its participationin EU
programmes. This desk research included in particular a review of
the websites of allmain governmental, institutional and
international players, in order to gather data andinformation about
their role in the system and in the cooperation/mobility with the
EU. Thisreview focused on policy aspects such as the modernisation
and internationalisation ofhigher education and on instruments and
practices related to quality assurance,qualifications frameworks,
the recognition of foreign credits and degrees, etc.
A different type of desk research was necessary in order to
compile the information neededfor the case studies provided in the
substantial Annex to the report. These case studies dealwith 15
Member States of the European Union. The list of these countries
was discussed and
10
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drawn up in full agreement with our Mexican colleagues, with a
view to providing Mexicanpolicy makers at governmental and
institutional level with information really suited to theirneeds.
These 15 case studies have been prepared mainly by Laura Ivette
BallesterosMendoza (ESMU) based on extensive desk research by Juan
Ramn Nieto Quezada (MexicanFederal Government, DGAIR).
The gathering of primary information was mainly based on
interviews with Mexicans andEuropeans directly involved in
Mexican-EU cooperation/mobility in higher education.Interviews were
conducted from Europe as well as from Mexico, with the
followingcategories of persons and institutions:
- Mexican students who are studying or studied in Europe and
European students whoare studying or studied in Mexico. Their
participation was mainly within theframework of cooperation
agreements and joint study programmes;
- Institutional leaders and international officers at higher
education institutions ornetworks on both sides, at national
Ministries and NARICs1, higher educationorganisations and exchange
agencies and educational services of embassies; and
- Internationally highly recognised experts in the fields of
international mobility andinternationalisation in higher education
and with experience in or with Mexico.
Some of these interviews were conducted as focus groups, i.e.
virtual meetings with smallgroups of individuals (4 6 persons)
sharing a common profile or experience. Individualinterviews were
conducted on the basis of three specially designed questionnaires
(forstudents, institutions and higher education experts). These
questionnaires wereadministered on paper whenever possible. Others
were administered by telephone, Skype oremail (in particular with
the experts referred to above).
We wish to express here our most sincere thanks to all
interviewees students, professors,administrators, experts who
accepted to share with us their experience and their opinion.
1 The interviews with a large number of NARICs were not part of
the original work plan for this Report, but theyhave provided
highly useful material and professional views for which we are
particularly grateful.
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I. THE MEXICAN HIGHER EDUCATION SYSTEM
Mexico is an important country at regional and world level. It
comes second in Latin America by the size of its population (113
million in 2010, compared to 196 million for Brazil) whichkeeps
growing more slowly than in previous decades - at about 1.2%
annually; in 2010 themedian age of the Mexican population was 26
years compared to 41 years in the EU27.With nearly 2 million square
kilometres Mexico is the third largest country in Latin
America,after Brazil and Argentina. Mexico is a full member of the
OECD (together with only Chileand Brazil in Latin America). With a
GDP per capita of over USD 14,000 in 20082 (inpurchasing power
parity, ppp), it was level with Argentina and ahead of all other
countries ofLatin America, including Chile (13,270) and Brazil
(10,000); its GDP was growing more slowlythan those of these two
countries and the regional (Latin American) average, but the
growthrate was nonetheless (depending on the actual year
considered) in the region of 4% perannum far above the EUs.
1. Governmental responsibility in the governance of higher
education
Mexico officially the United States of Mexico (Estados Unidos
Mexicanos) is a federalRepublic that numbers 32 federal entities:
31 States and one federal district (Distrito Federal DF)
corresponding to the metropolitan area of the federal capital,
Mexico City. This meansthat Mexico numbers actually 33 educational
systems (a federal one and 32 regional ones) atall educational
levels, including higher education. Amongst the founding principles
laid downin the Federal Constitution of 1917 are the right to free
(public) education, the laicism ofeducation and (following an
amendment of 1980) the autonomy of public universities ifsuch
autonomy is awarded to them by law. The Constitution also
guarantees the freedomto teach, i.e. the freedom to deliver private
education at all levels - within the framework ofthe applicable
legislation.
At the federal level higher education falls under the
responsibility of two main bodies:
- The Secretariat of Public Education (Secretario de Educacin
Pblica SEP)3 of theFederal Government, which in its current
definition dates back to 1921. Next to aDeputy-Secretariat for
basic education and another one for secondary education, theSEP has
two units that are of particular relevance to this study: the
Deputy-Secretariat for Higher Education (Subsecretara de Educacin
Superior SES)4 and theDepartment for Evaluation and Planning
(Unidad de Planeacin y Evaluacin dePolticas Educativas UPEPE)5. The
former includes 3 Directorates, respectively forTechnological
Higher Education, [Regulated] Professions (and the maintenance of
the
2 World Bank, World Development Report, 2010.3
http://www.sep.gob.mx4 At the time of writing this report, the
Deputy-Secretary for Higher Education was Dr. Rodolfo Tuirn.5
http://upepe.sep.gob.mx/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=70&Itemid=73
12
http://upepe.sep.gob.mx/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=70&Itemid=73http://www.sep.gob.mx
-
national register of professionals) and the Coordination of
Universities of Technology;the latter consists of two DGs dealing
respectively with Evaluation and with Planning,and a third one in
charge of Accreditation, Authorisation and Recognition of
Studies(Acreditacin, Incorporacin y Revalidacin DGAIR)6; UPEPE and
DGAIR deal with alllevels of education not just with higher
education.
Some other bodies linked to the SEP also play an important role
in higher education,in particular the Directorate General (DG) of
Professions, which serves as liaisonbetween the State and the
various professional corporations and oversees the accessto, and
exercise of many different professions, far beyond the 23
regulatedprofessions such as Medicine, Engineering, Architecture,
etc.). In this capacity, DGProfessions registers the individual
qualification of these professionals and issues tothem the
individual professional licence (cdula profesional). A cdula can be
issuedto individuals who demonstrate that they hold the required
level of qualification(secondary vocational diploma, associate
degree, licenciatura, specialisation diploma,master degree or PhD)
and have completed the social service (Servicio Social),
acompulsory period of voluntary work in a social service that
complements theprogramme of study; professional internships, that
are part of the study programmeor add to it, cannot be recognised
as Servicio Social. For Mexicans studying abroadand for foreign
graduates, this means that their access to a regulated profession
hinges not only on the recognition of their academic studies, but
also on theircompleting the Servicio Social.
This requirement was established in the Mexican Law on
Professions of the year 1945that has become obsolete with regard to
labour market needs in the KnowledgeSociety where the mobility of
talent is an important factor for economic and socialdevelopment.
Until it is improved, the current legislation entails huge
complicationsfor applicants and is seen by higher education
students and institutions as a majorobstacle to the development of
more mobility. Possible amendments are beingdebated in Parliament,
but it is not clear what the conclusion will be. Anotherdifficulty
is that the current legislation forces the DG Professions to
maintain theNational Register of Professionals, an official and
publicly accessible list of the over7 million licensed
practitioners in regulated and non-regulated professions7.
- The National Council for Science and Technology (Consejo
Nacional de Ciencias yTecnologa CONACYT)8 , which was created in
1970 and is responsible for thedefinition of a nation-wide policy
in these areas and for the development of research
6 http://www.dgair.sep.gob.mx DGAIR has been the main contact in
the Mexican government for the preparation of the present Report.
As mentioned in the introduction, its Director, Dr. Guillermo P.
LpezAndrade, and staff have made essential, professional and highly
valued contributions to it.7
http://www.cedulaprofesional.sep.gob.mx8
http://www.conacyt.gob.mx
13
http://www.conacyt.gob.mxhttp://www.cedulaprofesional.sep.gob.mxhttp://www.dgair.sep.gob.mx
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capacities and technology transfer to enterprises throughout the
country. A new Lawon Science and Technology confirming Mexicos
ambitions in the Knowledge Societywas adopted in 2002. CONACYTs
role is particularly important in the development
ofresearch-oriented postgraduate studies. As part of this mission,
it runs (incooperation with the SEP) the National Programme for the
Quality of PostgraduateStudies (Programa Nacional de Postgrados de
Calidad PNPC)9 , a peer-review basedevaluation scheme aimed at
labelling and supporting centres of postgraduatestudies of
distinguished quality, able to become internationally competitive.
As anextension to the evaluation programme, the CONACYT also
maintains a Register of(currently 1300) postgraduate courses of
excellence; 57% of these are Masterdegrees, 30% PhD programmes and
13% Specialisation courses; of these 1300programmes, the majority
are consolidated and some 40% are either recent creations or still
in development. CONACYT also runs a whole series of domestic
andinternational grant schemes for Mexican academic and scientific
staff pursuingpostgraduate studies, in particular at the doctoral
and post-doctoral level. CONACYTemphasizes the importance of
international cooperation agreements in these areas;a good example
of this is the Postgraduate Cooperation Programme, which is
co-financed by the Mexican and French governments and allows
doctoral candidates toprepare a thesis in cooperation with industry
under joint supervision (co-tutelle) from a Mexican and French
university.
In 2011-2012, Mexicos education system had a coverage rate of
100% at pre-primary andprimary level and of 97% and 68.5 %,
respectively, at lower and upper secondary educationlevel (age
group 12-15 and 16-18). A major national effort based on a revision
of theConstitution in 2011 is expected to allow full coverage at
secondary education level within adecade. At the tertiary level of
education, the enrolment rate was 32.4% for the age group19-23.
With a total enrolment of 3.3 million students in tertiary
education in the academicyear 2011-2012 (including some 300,000
open/distance education students), the Mexicanhigher education
system is also the second largest in Latin America after Brazil
(some 7million students). It has been growing rapidly at an average
pace of about 3.5% per annum,which is however lower than Brazil and
Latin America in general, where higher education hasincreased by
over 80% over the past decade. The total number of teachers in
Mexican highereducation is estimated at over 315,000. Some 85 to
100 new public HEIs have been createdannually in each of the past
few years in Mexico. By means of comparison, the above figuresmean
that Mexican higher education has become significantly bigger than
any nationalsystem in the EU10, both with respect to the total
number of students and the annual output of graduates
(420,000).
Major landmarks in the development of the current Mexican higher
education system werethe Federal Law on Education of 1973 and its
revision of 1993. These laws increased the
9
http://www.conacyt.gob.mx/Becas/calidad/Paginas/Becas_ProgramasPosgradosNacionalesCalidad.aspx10
Tertiary Education Statistics, Eurostat, November 2011.
14
http://www.conacyt.gob.mx/Becas/calidad/Paginas/Becas_ProgramasPosgradosNacionalesCalidad.aspx
-
power of the federal government in higher education and led to
the creation of the RVOE(Reconocimiento de Validez Oficial de
Estudios), a procedure allowing study programmes ofprivate higher
education to be officially recognised if they meet specific
conditions regardingtheir academic staff, facilities and
curriculum. The recognition is awarded on a case by casebasis to a
specific programme offered at a specific location, which means for
example that aprogramme offered at various campuses by the same
university needs as many RVOEs. TheRVOE decision requires an
official Act of recognition issued at the federal level
(presidentialdecree or SEP decision), by a State government (only
for programmes offered on theirterritory) or in some States - by an
autonomous public university. Of the current 25,000study programmes
with RVOE run by private institutions, 45% received their RVOE from
aState authority, 53% from a Federal body and 2% from an autonomous
university to whichthey are affiliated. Through the RVOE,
recognised study programmes gain official validity inthe Mexican
higher education system: their graduates can apply for a
professional licence(cdula profesional) or for a higher level of
study at private or public higher educationinstitutions. This is
what makes it valuable. Yet, it is not compulsory and is not seen
inMexican society as a quasi-accreditation or a warranty of
quality. Most private institutionsprogrammes with an RVOE do not
hold a formal accreditation from FIMPES (the federationof private
institutions of higher education see below) or another quality
assurance agency.
The General Law on the Coordination of Higher Education of 1978
aimed at creating agreater diversification of the various types of
higher education institutions in Mexico. Itrequired the Federal
Government to make certain that the name of HEIs (including the
useof the word university) corresponds to what they deliver and
called for a bettercoordination between the federal, State and
institutional level. In 2000, the legal frameworkgoverning the
private education sector was revised and a ministerial regulation
known asAcuerdo 279 was issued about private higher education
institutions interested in the federalRVOE. This amendment was used
by some States to introduce requirements for a localRVOE.
Some States are introducing new regulations linking RVOE and
quality assurance, with a viewto enhancing the commitment of
private institutions of higher education to quality. InOctober
2011, the State of Guanajuatos local law on education made it
possible to get anRVOE conditional on prior accreditation of the
institution and limited the duration of RVOEs.In July 2012 the
State of Puebla passed a new local law on higher education imposing
qualityconditions for the award and renewal of the RVOE.
Since mid-2011, a series of new federal governmental initiatives
were taken about thecoordination of quality assurance, the
improvement of the credit system and the recognitionof foreign
studies; these initiatives are presented in the last section of
Chapter II.
15
-
2. Higher education institutions and networks
Mexicos university tradition dates back several centuries. The
first university in Mexico wascreated as the Royal University of
New Spain, which received its charter from the King ofSpain in
September 1551, just a few months after its sister university of
San Marcos in Lima (Peru), making these two universities the oldest
in the whole of the Americas. FollowingMexicos independence, the
historical university was discontinued in 1833 and recreated in1910
as the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), now one of
the largest universities in the world.
Currently, the country has over 3,000 officially registered
institutions of higher education, ofwhich the majority (some 60%)
are private even though the private sector accounts onlyfor about
one third of tertiary level students. Since a number of these HEIs
operate as multi-campus institutions - some of them with a local
seat in each State or even province - thetotal number of higher
education campuses in the country actually exceeds 6,000.
Anunfamiliar feature for Europeans is that a number of Mexican HEIs
also run courses at thelevel of upper secondary education
(something quite common in Latin America in general).In order to
qualify as a university, higher education institutions need to
offer at least 5degree programmes (at Bachelor, Master or PhD
level) in at least 3 different knowledgeareas.
As a consequence, only about one third of registered HEIs are
universities (even thoughsome may not be called Universidad, but
for example Instituto Tecnolgico11). 380 of theseare public
universities, and some of the best known among them are autonomous
such asthe National Autonomous University of Mexico (Universidad
Nacional Autnoma de Mxico UNAM); others are federal universities
(such as the College of Mexico, the NationalInstitute of
Anthropology and History, the National Pedagogical University with
campuses allover the country or the brand new National Open and
Distance Education University) orState universities.
Within the non-university sector, there are, for example, a
large number of TeacherEducation Colleges (Escuelas Normales). In
recent years, as part of the effort to upgrade thecountrys
capacities in advanced science and technology, the government has
also created anumber of Universities of Technology (Universidades
Tecnolgicas), Polytechnic Universities(Universidades Politcnicas)
and regional postgraduate centres or colleges.
Mexicos large and heterogeneous tertiary education system
includes many different categories, networks, associations and
clusters of HEIs, depending on their legal status,affiliation,
scope, self-image, reputation, etc. The following table shows the
sub-sectors(types of HEIs) in Mexicos higher education system.
11 Examples of this type of universities are the ITAM or the
ITESO
16
-
TYPE INSTITUTIONALPROFILE
COMMENTS
1. Public autonomous Created by federal law. Universities
committed tofederal universities According to the
Federal Constitutionthey enjoy wideadministrative andacademic
freedom.
research, diffusion of culture andteaching at all levels of
highereducation:- National Autonomous Universityof Mexico.-
Metropolitan AutonomousUniversity.- Autonomous Agrarian
UniversityAntonio Narro.- Chapingo AutonomousUniversity.
2. Public federal and Created by law or by Universities and
institutionsState universities and presidential decree. committed
to research, diffusioninstitutions of higher These institutions
have of culture and teaching at alleducation a certain degree
of
academic autonomyand a varying degree of(limited)
administrativeautonomy.
levels of higher education.Examples at federal level:Pedagogical
National University,National Polytechnic Institute,National Open
and DistanceUniversity, Postgraduate Institutesof various federal
ministries,National School of Anthropologyand History.
States also create suchinstitutions, usually by local law
ordecree.
3. Institutions of higher Generally, these At federal level: the
College ofeducation with support institutions are Mexico, a
prestigious nationalfrom, or participation of governed by civil law
centre of teaching and researchthe federal government (like a
private
institution), but theyhave federalrepresentatives on theirboard,
and receivepublic funds; they may
with a high level of autonomyconceded by Presidential
decree.
The States also support orparticipate in institutions of
thistype.
17
-
therefore be seen asnear-public entities.
4. Public federal Usually decentralized Institutions dedicated
mainly toresearch centres institutions coordinated research and
postgraduate
by the National Councilof Science andTechnology.
programs. At federal level, 7 aredecentralised Centres
coordinatedby CONACYT, e.g. the Centre ofEngineering and
IndustrialDevelopment, the Centre ofResearch and Higher Education
inSocial Anthropology, the Collegeof the South Frontier or
theNational Institute of Astrophysics,Optics and Electronics. 19
othersare Centres with participation ofanother federal entity.
There are also local centres ofresearch created by law, decree
orexecutive order.
5. Governmental Specialised institutions Some examples of
theseinstitutions, organisms (some 37) run by a institutions are:or
ministries offering Federal Ministry or The Council of the
Federaleducation byagreement
Agency, with anagreement from the
Judicature (responsible for thespecialization of judges,
Ministry of Education torecognise theirprogrammes. Most offer
postgraduatecourses and doresearch.
magistrates and judicial staff), theNational Security School, or
theCentre of CinematographicTraining.
6. State public Usually created by law 43 State
(autonomous)universities or decree of a local universities involved
in research,
State Congress. Most of culture and teaching at all levelsthem
are considered as of higher education, e.g. theautonomous State
Autonomous University ofuniversities. Aguascalientes, the
Autonomous
University of the State of Mexico,the University of Guadalajara,
theUniversity of Guanajuato, the
18
-
Universidad Veracruzana, or theAutonomous University of
MexicoCity.
7. Federal and statetechnological institutes
Public and centralizedinstitutions, run by thefederal or a
localMinistry of Education,offering teaching at alllevels, mainly
to trainengineers andadministrators for localneeds. Research is not
amain task, but itsimportance is growingat some of them.
The national (public) system oftechnological institutes
includes110 federal TechnologicalInstitutes and 108
stateTechnological Institutes.
8. Polytechnic Vocationally-oriented There are Polytechnic
universitiesuniversities public institutions. in 23 States of
Mexico.
Generally they aredecentralizedinstitutions operated bythe
States. They offerhigher education at alllevels and have acertain
degree ofautonomy.
9. Technological universities
Created by a localdecree or law. Theyoffer mainly
2-yearprogrammes leading toan associate degree or asuperior
highertechnician degree. Theyplan to offer bachelordegrees in order
toincrease coverage andattract more students.
There are 61 TechnologicalUniversities in 26 States
ofMexico.
10. Teacher colleges Public schools for thetraining of
basiceducation teachers runby local governments.
272 public escuelas normales allover the country + 206
privateones.
19
-
They offer a national,official curriculum(mainly at the
Bachelorlevel) established by thefederal government.Private
institutions mayalso offer thiscurriculum with priorauthorisation
of thelocal Ministry ofEducation.
11. Intercultural Created to promote These universities are
mainlyuniversities professionals
committed to thedevelopment ofindigenous communitiesthrough
training at alllevels of education.
located in areas near theindigenous communities.
12. Private universities Some prestigious These institutions
include: theand institutions of private institutions Autonomous
Technologicalhigher education with special treatment
enjoy specialtreatment thanks to a
Institute of Mexico, theMonterrey Institute of Technology
Presidential decree or and Higher Education (ITESM),an executive
order of Anahuac University, thethe Ministry. They enjoy Autonomous
University ofa certain degree of Guadalajara, the
Iberoamericanautonomy, but need to University, the University of
themaintain close contact Valley of Mexico, Intercontinentalwith
the SEP. Current University.law no longer providesfor such
decrees/orders.
13. Private HEIs Private institutions needto get for
eachacademic programme ateach site a RVOE fromthe federal or a
Stategovernment or, in somecases, from anautonomous university.
There are 2,608 privateinstitutions (sites) with a federalor
local RVOE at bachelor leveland 1,186 private institutions(sites)
with a RVOE atpostgraduate level (specialisationcourses, masters,
PhD).
20
-
13. International HEIs Institutions based in - Latin-American
Faculty of SocialMexico, with an Sciences (FLACSO).international
characteror participation.
-Latin-American Institute ofEducational Communication(ILCE).
The complex diversity of higher education institutions in Mexico
makes it difficult to producedetailed statistics. The following
general data was taken from the sixth and final State of theUnion
address of President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa12.
Total
Normal education bachelors degree
Technological and University Bachelors degree Postgraduate
Total Federal Local Private Total Federal Local Private
Autonomous Total Federal Local Private Autonomous
3,161.2 133.8 6.1 93.9 33.8 2 798.5 397.8 456.8 850.1 1,093.7
228.9 19.0 10.9 118.9 80.2
Students in Higher Education (Thousands)
Higher Education Teachers
Total
Normal education bachelors degree
Technological and University Bachelors degree Postgraduate
Total Federal Local Private Total Federal Local Private
Autonomous Total Federal Local Private Autonomous
342,269 16,329 769 11,064 4,496 279,666 29,116 33,728 114,804
102,018 46,274 6,985 2,301 21,776 15,212
Higher Education Institutions
Total
Normal education bachelors degree Technological and University
Bachelors degree Postgraduate
Total Federal Local Private Total Federal Local Private
Autonomous Total Federal Local Private Autonomous
6,878 484 6 272 206 4,224 223 574 2,608 819 2,170 201 165 1,186
618
The most important network of HEIs in Mexico is the National
Association of Universities andHigher Education Institutions
(Asociacin Nacional de Universidades e Instituciones deEducacin
Superior de la Repblica Mexicana ANUIES)13 with a membership of
165universities and other HEIs that represent, as a rule of thumb,
most of Mexican good
12 http://sexto.informe.calderon.presidencia.gob.mx/xls.html13
http://www.anuies.mx
21
http://www.anuies.mxhttp://sexto.informe.calderon.presidencia.gob.mx/xls.html
-
quality public higher education. ANUIES claims to represent over
80% of Mexican highereducation (in terms of student numbers).
Although ANUIES counts also a small number ofprivate HEIs as
associate members14 it represents mainly the public sector, where
itsrequirement for membership tends to be seen as a credible
substitute to institutionalaccreditation. Its membership directory
provides a very helpful list of (mainly public)Mexican institutions
of higher education offering a high proportion of officially
recognisedprogrammes15, as well as a directory of their degrees
(licenciaturas) and postgraduateprogrammes16. ANUIES has been for
decades the main discussion partner of governmentalpolicy makers;
it has been closely involved in policy shaping and runs a series of
specialisednetworks and scholarship schemes in cooperation with, or
on behalf of the Federal Ministryof Education.
The most important network of private higher education
institutions is the Federation ofPrivate Mexican Institutions of
Higher Education (Federacin de Instituciones MexicanasParticulares
de Educacin Superior FIMPES)17, created in 1982. Currently it has
amembership of 108 institutions that have passed the organisations
own procedure forinstitutional accreditation and represent in total
some 14% of Mexican higher education(in terms of student numbers).
Of these 108 institutions, 46 have passed the accreditation atthe
highest level (with merit) and the majority of these participate in
special SEPprogramme that facilitates their operation. In contrast
to the public sector, the directory ofofficially recognised
programmes offered by private HEIs is not maintained by FIMPES, but
by the Federal Ministry of Education18.
There are many other groups and networks of Higher Education
Institutions. As acomplement to the aforementioned broad
associations (ANUIES and FIMPES), the followinghave specific
relevance for Mexican/EU cooperation and mobility, for example as
guides toEuropean universities and students keen to find means of
collaboration with Mexico:
- The Mexican Consortium of Universities (Consorcio de
Universidades Mexicanas CUMex)19 aims to provide a common space for
higher education with goodquality in Mexico. CUMex membership
(currently some 20 institutions) is reservedfor public universities
belonging to ANUIES and meeting certain additional criteria such as
the percentage of students studying in officially recognised
programmes,the qualification of academic staff, effective tutoring
leading to a comparatively low
14 These members are grouped as the Council of Private
Universities and Similar Institutions (Consejo deUniversidades
Particulares e Instituciones Afines CUPRIA); since they need to
comply with ANUIES criteria for membership, CUPRIA includes some
(but by no means all) of the best private universities: some of
these (likeITESM) belong both to ANUIES and FIMPES, others only to
FIMPES (like the Iberoamericana) and others only toFIMPES; the
CUPRIA sends an elected member to the annual General Assembly of
ANUIES.15 http://www.anuies.mx/la_anuies/diries/16
http://www.anuies.mx/servicios/c_licenciatura/index2.php 17
http://fimpes.org.mx18
http://www.sirvoes.sep.gob.mx/sirvoes/index.jsp and
www.calidad.sep.gob.mx (a detailed database ofprogrammes and HEIs
showing which are accredited or evaluated.19
http://www.cumex.org.mx
22
http://www.cumex.org.mxwww.calidad.sep.gob.mxhttp://www.sirvoes.sep.gob.mx/sirvoes/index.jsphttp://fimpes.org.mxhttp://www.anuies.mx/servicios/c_licenciatura/index2.phphttp://www.anuies.mx/la_anuies/diries/
-
level of failure and dropout, the level of employment of
graduates, the strategicorientation of institutional strategies and
a high level of accountability andtransparency. Authorised Mexican
and foreign sources see CUMex membership as areliable signal of
good quality for regional institutions, which are less known than
thenational leaders but provide interesting possibilities for
cooperation andpartnerships. CUMex membership may therefore also be
of relevance to Europeanuniversities, networks and students.
- The Common Space of Technological Higher Education (Espacio
Comn de EducacinSuperior Tecnolgico ECEST)20 comprises the
Institutes of Technology at federal andState level, the Polytechnic
Universities and the Universities of Technology of Mexico.This
network is not fully self-administered: it is coordinated by the
Federal Ministryof Educations Higher Education Section, on the
basis of an agreement signed in 2009with the member HEIs. The
agreement sets out the main goals of this technologicalcluster: to
boost the quality and flexibility of study programmes by means of
thecross-recognition of licenciaturas and postgraduate studies
among the members, topromote the development of professional skills
and employability in graduates, andto coordinate the mobility and
cooperation efforts between member HEIs and
theirinternationalisation efforts. In view of the strong interest
in engineering andtechnological studies of both Mexican and
European authorities and highereducation institutions, ECEST may
offer interesting opportunities for futurecooperation.
- The Alliance for Higher Education (Alianza por la Educacin
Superior ALPES)21 , anassociation between some 50 private
institutions offering higher professional trainingcreated in 1996.
ALPES seeks to offer an affordable, high level
alternative[presumably to public higher education] for the training
of the kind of mid-level,responsible professionals that Mexico
needs, e.g. in areas such as hotel and catering.The association is
keen to develop some kind of quality processes and criteria
amongits members. Currently its main activity consists in
maintaining cooperation/mobilityagreement with employer
organisations and some foreign partners in e.g. Canada and Spain.
This network may be of interest for HEIs operating at level 5 of
the EQF,which is by far not the most active in EU-Mexico joint
activities in higher education.
3. Current priorities in Mexican higher education policy
The previous section presented a large, diverse and fast-growing
Mexican higher educationsystem. The Federal Governments main
priorities, articulated in the series of multi-annualNational Plans
for Education (the most recent one covering the period 2007-2012),
are
20 http://www.ecest.gob.mx21 http://www.alpes.edu.mx
23
http://www.alpes.edu.mxhttp://www.ecest.gob.mx
-
currently related to coverage, equity, quality, efficiency
(relevance) and funding22. All thesepriorities have a bearing on
the internationalisation of Mexican higher education, whichneeds to
be analysed as a separate dimension, even though it may not yet be
fully clearwhether or not it is about to become a sixth major
priority in Mexican higher educationpolicy.
1. Coverage
Over the last decade, capacity building in higher education has
been the main, on-going objective of Mexican higher education
policy. The target was to increase higher educationscoverage from a
Gross Enrolment Rate (GER) of only 13% of the age group 19-23 in
theyear 1991-1992 and 19% ten years later, to about 30% by 2012.
According to the 5thPresidential report of the Federal
Administration 2006-2012, this goal was achieved by theacademic
year 2010-2011, when the coverage reached 30.9% (counting students
enrolled inface-to-face programmes and also students enrolled in
open and distance educationprogrammes). In the academic year
2011-2012, the coverage rate was 32.4%. In the short period between
2007 and 2010, 96 new public institutions of higher education were
created,and 50 new campuses were constructed, enrolling at least
90,000 students23.
Although Mexicans Gross Enrolment rate (GER) in higher education
has been growing at theimpressive rate of 1% per annum over the
last decade, considerable efforts still lie ahead:according to
UNESCO data of 2008, Mexicos coverage rate of only 26% was still
the lowest one among the big countries in Latin America (well
behind Chiles 52%, Latin Americasaverage of 35%, Brazils 30%...and
of course, Cubas 109%); it was also the lowest in theOECD, where
most countries are well above 50%, and even over 70% in e.g. the
Nordicregion.
Most of the growth in Mexican higher education has been
concentrated at the level of thelicenciatura (first degree normally
requiring 4.5 to 5 years of study) while shorter, morevocational
higher education grew at a much slower pace. Overall, 89% of all
students areenrolled in licenciatura programmes, while only 3.5%
take shorter, vocational highereducation courses and 7.5% are
registered at the postgraduate level. This seems to sustainthe
common belief that Mexico is a country of licenciados (first degree
graduates), i.e.society sees this as the level one ought to achieve
in order to find ones way intoemployment and society.
Mexican authorities started in 1991 investing heavily in the
development of a shorter,vocational higher education by creating
the very decentralised network of (nowadays?) 250Universidades
Tecnolgicas, i.e. vocational higher education institutions offering
2-yearprogrammes modelled after the French IUTs or the US Community
Colleges and leading to
22 Most data in this Section was taken from the 2011 Report on
Higher Education in Latin America, published byCINDA and Universia
(Jos Joaqun Brunner, Editor).23
http://quinto.informe.fox.presidencia.gob.mx/index.php?idseccion=6
24
http://quinto.informe.fox.presidencia.gob.mx/index.php?idseccion=6
-
the titles of Tcnico Superior Universitario (TSU) or Profesional
Asociado. In spite of allefforts, the development of this lower end
of the higher education spectrum has remainedlimited and has even
slowed down in recent years24, and the Universidades
Tecnolgicashave turned their attention to the licenciatura level.
Overall, short vocational highereducation represents only 1% of
graduates in Mexico, well below the OECD average of 9%. Inrecent
years Mexicos attention has focused ever more towards the top end
of the system(postgraduate studies), which attracts a growing but
comparatively still small minority ofstudents
2. Equity
It has been noted above that the Mexican higher education system
is highly differentiatedboth between categories of higher education
institutions and within each such category.Contrary to some other
Latin American countries where the private sector enrols
themajority of students, in Mexico the public sector accounts for
about two thirds of thestudent population. Yet, issues about equity
in the access to, and success in higher educationremain a major
area of concern. This is in spite of the efforts to decentralise
the system andbring higher education opportunities closer to local
communities, the top end of Mexicanhigher education remains highly
concentrated in the national and a small number of regionalcities.
The rapid development of smaller, private institutions absorbing
local demandwithout a particular attention to quality is another
area of concern: the same as in otherLatin American countries, it
addresses less-well prepared students, who are more likely tocome
from poorer parts of society but have to pay fees and may get
sub-standard education.This concern justifies the Governments
attention to the development of quality standards inparticular in
the private sector of higher education, in order to distinguish
betweenlegitimate and opportunistic institutions of higher
education.
Equity issues are also high on the agenda of ANUIES, as can be
seen in the Associationsrecent report about the limitations of
current policies and the need for a new generation ofhigher
education policies in Mexico25. To the strategic priorities that
can be expected fromsuch a report (e.g. access, innovation,
academic careers, mobility, funding orinternationalisation), the
ANUIES report adds a less common one. This is the physicalsecurity
of persons and facilities on Mexican campuses, a growing concern
that is evidentlyrelevant in the debate about equity and also
interests Mexicans foreign partners, visitingstaff and incoming
students. As main policy lines, ANUIES proposes a closer
cooperationbetween IES and local authorities in charge of security,
the training of staff about securityissues and a better
coordination between the various governmental levels (federal,
state,local, institutional).
24 Pedro Flores Crespo, Trayectoria del modelo de Universidades
Tecnolgicas en Mxico (1991-2009),Cuadernos de Trabajo UNAM, 2012.25
Inclusin con Responsabilidad Social: Una nueva generacin de
polticas de educacin superior, ANUIES, Mexico City, 2012. ISBN
978-607-451-048-5
25
-
Similarly to other Latin American countries, female students
represent more than half of thestudent population and of new
graduates although this is not the case across alldisciplines,
levels and regions. Yet, the main line of stratification of the
student population isaccording to social origin: 43% of young
people of the richest 20% of the population arestudents, but this
percentage is just 25% in the second quintile and less than 10% in
thelowest one; these percentages have not much changed over the
last years. The enrolment rate varies also considerably across the
country: while the national average is now about 30%, it is still
under 20% in several States of the Mexican Federation. The Mexican
FederalGovernment is therefore trying to develop a series of
fellowship programmes aimed atvarious categories of disadvantaged
groups. The recent creation of Mexicos first-ever student loan
system backed by the federal government has however been received
withscepticism in the academic community, even though it was
presented as a measure aimed atdemocratising higher education. The
new loan scheme is expected to make available loansof about Euro
150 million to some 23,000 students during the first year of
operation. Someexperts fear that it could mostly benefit students
(and hence indirectly higher educationinstitutions) in the private
sector and that it might push thousands of Mexican youth
intounmanageable debt26. In parallel, the SEP is planning the
setting-up of a NationalCommission of Scholarships and Student
Financial Assistance that would be responsible forthe coordination
of all grants and loans programmes at all levels.
3. Quality
In a very fast-growing higher education system like Mexicos, it
is hardly surprising that themain bottlenecks with regard to the
quality of higher education lie with improving theentrance level of
students coming from secondary education and in developing
highereducation staff.
In the light of Mexicos recurrent poor results with the OECDs
PISA tests, the FederalGovernments National Action Plan for the
years 2007-2012 has tried to overhaul theeducational system from
the bottom up, starting with primary and secondary education
andincluding higher education.
This requires a comprehensive, long-term effort that will be
essential for the nationsdevelopment and its competitiveness in the
Global Knowledge Society. In higher educationitself, it implies a
massive effort to increase the number of academic staff (currently
335,000persons) and their level of qualifications. The Federal
Government has set in place a policyaimed at improving the economic
conditions of teachers in public institutions of highereducation
(mainly through merit-based bonuses that come in addition to a
rather low basicfinancial compensation) and at raising the
proportion of academic staff holding a Master or
26 Cf. Marion Lloyd (UNAM), The danger of Mexicos new
student-loan program, Blog of The Chronicle of HigherEducation.
http://chronicle.com/blogs/worldwise/the-dangers-of-mexicos-new-student-loan-program/29084
26
http://chronicle.com/blogs/worldwise/the--dangers--of--mexicos--new--student--loan--program/29084
-
PhD degree. This means a major national effort and explains the
large flow of Mexicanteachers seeking postgraduate degrees abroad,
including in particular in the US and Europe.
This also explains the current efforts of the Federal Government
to improve and betterorganise the hitherto partial, fragmented and
complex system for the evaluation,certification and accreditation
of quality in higher education that has emerged in stages overthe
past 20 years (see Chapter II on Quality Assurance below).
4. Efficiency and social relevance
Among the priorities of the Federal Government lies the need to
increase the contribution ofhigher education to the development of
the country and its adjustment to the requirementsof the Knowledge
Society.
From the viewpoint of graduates, the current situation is rather
satisfactory. The private(individual) return of higher education
studies compared to secondary education is relativelyhigh in most
of Latin America, with an average of some 15%; this is also Mexicos
rate, whichis clearly above the minimum of 10% found in Argentina
and Uruguay, even though it islower than that of other major
countries such as Brazil (26%) or Chile (20%). The transition
ofgraduates from higher education to work may not be easy for all,
but it is rather better thanelsewhere in Latin America and of
course in Europe: the unemployment rate of thepopulation aged 25 to
64 years was only 3.3 % in 2007, compared to 8.2% in e.g. Germany
orFrance.
In 2010 the PROFLEX project27, supported by the European
Commission through the ALFAprogramme, provided comparative data
gathered from 9,800 Latin American graduates fiveyears after
graduation; nearly half of the respondents were from 9 Mexican
universities;56.5% of them were women; most were satisfied with
their studies and their integration intoprofessional life, in line
with the Latin American average except for some specific
aspects:Mexico had the highest rate of students combining study
with work (25%) and the highest percentage of graduates who work as
independent workers (20%); the country also had thehighest
percentage of graduates who would choose again the same studies at
the sameuniversities (over 63%), although they acknowledge two
well-known relative weaknesses oftheir curricula, concerning the
acquisition of practical experience and the learning of
foreignlanguages.
Against this mixed picture, the Federal Governments main
priorities with respect to therelevance of higher education to the
needs of Mexican learners and society are threefold:
- to improve the learning process of students, in particular
through more flexiblecurricula and better tutorial systems aimed at
developing students capacities beyondthe academic dimensions;
27 PROFLEX Project, Summary of Findings in Latin America in
comparison to Europe, J.G. Mora, J.M. Carot and A.Conchado Editors,
Universidad Politcnica de Valencia, June 2010. ISBN
978-84-693-4550-4.
27
-
- to better articulate educational programmes at all levels with
skills demanded onthe labour market and with the requirements of
regional and national technologicaldevelopment; and
- to improve the integration, coordination and management of a
very diverse anddecentralised higher education system that lies
largely beyond the possibilities ofdirect governmental action.
These three priorities are strongly in line with the aims of the
Bologna Process and theModernisation Agenda for European Higher
Education, which focus on learning outcomes,employability and
organisational reform agenda.
A major priority of the Federal Government is therefore to
develop specific programmesaimed at encouraging technological
development and innovation, through bodies such asINNOVATEC,
INNOVAPYME (for SMEs) or PROINNOVA linked to the National Council
forScience and Technology (CONACYT) that reports directly to the
Office of the President whileworking closely with SEP28. The main
goal of these initiatives has been to develop a researchand
technology system that articulates higher educations research
capacities with publicresearch institutions and the productive
sector29.
Another measure aimed at increasing the relevance of Mexican
education to the labourmarket is the proposal to set up a national
Qualifications Framework. There is not yet a finaldraft for such a
framework, but a possible model is under development (see last
section ofChapter II).
5. Funding
Mexicos overall spending on education is in line with the OECD
average: in 2011 the countryspent 5.8% of its GDP on education
(OECD average 5.9%). Of this, some 1.2% was spent onhigher
tertiary) education, of which about 0.9% came from public sources
and 0.4% fromprivate ones. With Mexico spending a much lower
percentage of its GDP as publicexpenditure, the above figures mean
that Mexico is spending over 20% of its total publicexpenditure on
education the highest percentage of all OECD countries. This should
beseen together with another distinctive feature of Mexicos higher
education: from the totalof 1.2% of GDP spent on higher education,
about 75% (0.9% of GDP) are funded from publicresources and while
in most of Latin American private higher education has been the
fastest growing sector, in Mexico (and in some other countries such
as Colombia) the strongest growth over recent years was registered
in the public sector. Over the past decade, 71% ofnew study places
were created in the public sector, which is interpreted by experts
as asignal that private higher education has reached the limits of
what the population can payfor.
28 National Development Plan 2007-2012
http://pndcalderon.presidencia.gob.mx/index.php?page=transf_edu229
Educacin superior, ciencia y tecnologa en Mxico: tendencias, retos,
prospectiva, essay by Enrique delValle, UNAM, 2011.
http://www.revistadelauniversidad.unam.mx/8711/delval/87delval.html
28
http://www.revistadelauniversidad.unam.mx/8711/delval/87delval.htmlhttp://pndcalderon.presidencia.gob.mx/index.php?page=transf_edu2
-
This goes together with another observation. While expenditure
per student has beengrowing in Mexico as in most other OECD
countries, in Mexico this increase has been highlyfocussed on
higher education. Mexico spends about 3.3 times more per tertiary
educationstudent than per primary education pupil much less than
Brazils ratio of 5.4, but wellabove the OECD average30. Overall,
the CINDA Report of 2011 concludes that in spite of thepositive
results achieved over the past 20 years, Mexico needs to urgently
rethink its fundingpolicies and to better link them with quality
and equity, in order to avoid the perverseeffects that have been
growing in the past few years31.
This implies a continued, strong investment from public funding
sources aimed at developingthe higher education sector in general
and its research capacities in particular: development of local
infrastructures in Mexico and training of (mainly young) Mexican
researchers atpartner universities abroad (doctoral programmes and
post-doctoral stays, financed mainlyvia the CONACYT and in part
through bilateral programmes with countries like the USA,Germany,
Spain, France, etc.
4. Mexican higher education and internationalisation
Some aspects that are high on European agendas for higher
education are not seen as corepriorities in Mexico, for example the
redevelopment of curricula, the review of teaching-learning
methodologies or the shift towards lifelong learning. This is also
the case forimportant aspects of internationalisation and student
mobility.
Internationalisation has been a growing priority in Mexican
higher education agendas overthe past decade. Nevertheless, Mexican
internationalisation is following other patterns andpriorities to
those in Europe, and internationalisation is mainly affecting some
parts, ratherthan the whole of the higher education sector.
The internationalisation of Mexican higher education has been
promoted both bygovernmental policies and the main higher education
associations, notably ANUIES. On thegovernmental side, the SEPs
main reason for seeking more internationalisation has been
toimprove the quality of the system as a condition for the countrys
economic and socialdevelopment, above all at the upper segment of
tertiary education and in conjunction withresearch. While the
number of higher education teachers has tripled in Mexico over the
last three decades, the vast majority of them seriously lack
international exposure andexperience; this is why the federal
government seeks to address this issue through a seriesof
programmes ranging from basic language learning to high-quality
postgraduate studiesabroad for teachers (mainly through the PROMEP)
and above all for researchers (mainlythrough CONACYT programmes and
grants).
30 Figures mainly taken from OECDs Education at a Glance,
2011.31 CINDA-Universia Report 2011, Analysis of the case of Mexico
in the Section Economy of the various nationalhigher education
systems, pages 312-313.
29
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Several such programmes are run as part of intergovernmental
cooperation schemes, usuallyon a co-financing basis. At the
bilateral level, such cooperation schemes exist with several
EUcountries, in particular with those most involved in higher
education cooperation/mobilitywith Mexico, such as Spain, France,
Germany or the United Kingdom. At the multilaterallevel Mexico is
part of the North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA) with the USA
andCanada and an active partner in the higher education activities
that have emerged withinthis framework since 199232. Mexico has
also been actively involved in the development ofthe Common Higher
Education Area between the European Union and Latin America and
theCaribbean (ALCUE) and participates in the activities proposed
within this framework, e.g.through the ALFA programme or the TUNING
project for Latin America. These activities arepresented in more
detail in Chapter III of the present report.
Internationalisation has also become an ever more strategic item
on the agenda of highereducation institutions and networks. ANUIES
is encouraging its members to engage invarious types of
internationalisation strategies: incoming and outgoing student and
staffmobility, internationalisation of curricula and course
materials, seminars and publicationsabout internationalisation
strategies and indicators of internationalisation,
inter-institutionalagreements and joint programmes, etc.
Historically, the main emphasis of internationalcooperation and
mobility has been with HEIs in the US, as proximity plays a big
role in US-Mexico relations (trade, migration, etc.), but Europe
has always been an important alternative destination, and there is
a clear awareness at all levels that Mexican teachers andstudents
also need to know Europe for cultural, linguistic, economic and
political reasons.
According to the latest ANUIES data quoted in OECDs Review of
Mexican Tertiary Education(2008), international activities of
ANUIES member institutions were mainly organised (92%)on the basis
of bilateral (and to a lesser extent trilateral/multilateral)
inter-institutionalagreements. These activities cover the whole
spectrum of disciplines: 23% were inEducation, 23% in Social
Sciences, 20% in Engineering, 15% in Natural Sciences and 13%
inHealth (not 100%). Students and staff going abroad went mainly to
Europe (46%, with astrong focus on a limited number of countries),
the USA (33%) and Latin America (17%).Visiting students/staff came
mainly from the USA (37%), Europe (34%) and Latin America (15%). At
NAFTA level, Mexican higher education institutions are active
partners in theConsortium for North American Higher Education
Collaboration (CONAHEC), a network of over 160 higher education
institutions of the 3 countries including 53 in Mexico33.
Mexicanhigher education institutions actively participate in the
EUs mobility programmes with thirdcountries, such as Erasmus Mundus
or Marie-Curie (see Chapter III, below).
32 In particular the Program for North American Mobility in
Higher Education, which provides both mobilitygrants for students
and academic and administrative staff and support for trilateral
programmes that are very comparable to the kind of joint projects
supported by the EUs ALFA programme.33 http://www.conahec.org
CONAHEC runs grant schemes for student and staff mobility and acts
as a highereducation lobby with the federal governments of the 3
countries. Since 2007 CONAHEC has been expanding itsmembership and
activities to other world regions, starting with other Latin
American countries and Europe (inparticular Spain).
30
http://www.conahec.org
-
A major player in mobility and cooperation in Mexican higher
education is the MexicanAssociation for International Education
(Asociacin Mexicana para la EducacinInternacional AMPEI)34 . AMPEI
has a membership of about 150 academic and professionalexperts
(belonging to some 50 different HEIs) directly involved in
international highereducation. It organises conferences, workshops
and seminars and issues publications aimedat developing
international awareness and capacities at member institutions.
AMPEI maintains relations with its sister associations in the USA
(the National Association ofInternational Educators NAFSA) and in
Europe (the European Association for InternationalEducation EAIE).
Contrary to similar organisations in other Latin American countries
(e.g.Brazil, Argentina, Chile, etc.), AMPEI is an independent
membership organisation, not aCommission or a dependency of the
National Rectors Conference. There is no doubt that AMPEI will need
to be a key player in the further internationalisation of Mexicos
highereducation and its stronger cooperation/mobility with
Europe.
Internationalisation in Mexico also hinges on factors related to
the key problems of accessand equity. Many Mexican students have
difficulties in fulfilling the requirements for studyabroad, either
because their studies are not up to the expected standards (a
reality that tends to be related to financial, social and cultural
factors), their proficiency in foreignlanguages is insufficient,
their inability to afford the related travel and study costs or
theirunavailability because they study part-time and have a job on
the side. However, Mexicanhigher education also numbers a
significant proportion of students/graduates who are verywell
prepared, especially those studying highly demanding programmes
(such asengineering, natural and other scientific disciplines) at
reputable (mainly public) institutions;either on the basis of their
own resources or thanks to a Mexican or foreign grant, many ofthese
students wish to continue their postgraduate studies abroad at
prestigiousinternational institutions mostly in the USA and in
Europe.
With regard to staff mobility, Mexican scholars often find it
very difficult to leave their postsfor longer periods of time as
they may lose their position at the university especially atprivate
institutions. The solution they would favour would be a one-to-one
exchange, wherea European professor takes the place of a Mexican
professor for a predetermined period oftime, but the difficulties
of this exercise are acknowledged at governmental and
institutionallevel.
According to Latin American and European experts in
internationalisation, the mainchallenges that need to be overcome
for the development of internationalisation in general,and for
Mexico-EU cooperation and mobility in particular, are related to a
series of structuralfactors in Mexican higher education35:
34 http://www.ampei.org.mx/Eng/default.html35 The process on
internationalisation at Latin American HEIs, Jocelyne Gcel vila
(University of Guadalajara),in Journal of Studies in International
Education (JSIE), Volume 11, Fall/Winter 2007, pp. 400-409;
31
http://www.ampei.org.mx/Eng/default.html
-
A weak backing from permanent staff at HEIs: many Mexican higher
educationteachers are not fully qualified, not well paid and work
only part-time as they need todo extra classes, consulting schemes
or even additional coursework within or outsidethe university (only
81,000 of the 330,000 higher education teachers have
full-timecontracts); only a small minority of them is involved in
research activities and an evensmaller minority (16,000 persons,
i.e. less than 5%) belong to the National ResearchSystem; there are
few professionals involved in the management of
internationalcooperation and mobility; with very few exceptions,
private universities are hardlyinvolved in research, as there are
few or no incentives for teachers to do researchand the
student-teacher ratios tend to be very high;
Limited number of students and teachers who are prepared to
study and work inforeign languages, even in English;
Low number of students enrolled at the postgraduate level (only
about 7%), inparticular at the PhD level (0.2%); this makes Mexican
higher education lessattractive for potential partners in Europe,
where universities are particularly keen tofind good partners for
the exchange of researchers and students at the postgraduateand
doctoral levels;
Funding difficulties, particularly at times of a weak peso,
economic turbulences anddiminishing budgets in Mexico and in
partner European countries (e.g. Spain); and
Security issues, which act as a deterrent for many students,
families,teachers/researchers and institutions that would otherwise
choose Mexico as theirdestination.
Brain drain issues also play a role in this cooperation matrix
between Mexico and theEU, but they do not seem to be a major
determinant in the shaping of mobilitypatterns36.
Over and above these factors, several experts also refer to a
widespread lack of trueunderstanding of the nature of the trends
and challenges in international highereducation.
These structural factors are compounded by more academic ones.
Hitherto, Mexicanhigher education has focussed mainly on responding
to a fast growing internal demandand has not (yet) been obliged to
work on its international competitiveness. In spite offrustrating
procedures for the recognition of foreign studies, international
mobility has
36 Tendencias en las movilidades estudiantil y acadmica en
Amrica Latina: de la fuga a la ganancia decerebros, Sylvie Didou
Aupetit, May 2012. The author refers to three different types of
measures aimed atmoving from brain drain to brain gain in the
leading countries in the region: the repatriation of
talent,invitation of foreign-based nationals for short-term stays
at a national university, and the organization (i.e.the linkage) of
the Diasporas.
32
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benefited a significant number of students and staff, but it has
not (yet) produced animpact on institutional strategies, structures
and attitudes. Similarly, at the Europeanend, many HEIs still view
Mexico as a less-developed country and fail to recognise that the
system offers a significant number of high-quality HEIs, demanding
studyprogrammes, high-level research teams and excellent students
at the undergraduate,master and PhD level37.
37 These conclusions about the state of internationalization in
Mexico draw mainly on the Chapter onInternationalisation in the
OECDs Review of Tertiary Education in Mexico and on interviews with
independentexperts, especially Dr. Hans de Wit, Dr. Jocelyne Gcel
vila, Dr. Salvador Malo, Dr. Sylvia Didou Aupetit, andDr. Arnold
Spitta.
33
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II. QUALITY ASSURANCE AND TRANSPARENCY TOOLS IN MEXICANHIGHER
EDUCATION
The development of internal and external quality assurance
systems has been a major recent feature in higher education all
around the world. This movement started relatively early (inthe
1980s or even earlier) in Latin America, mainly in the form of
institutional andprogramme accreditation through governmental or
quasi-governmental agencies at nationallevel. Mexico is no
exception in respect of these developments, but contrary to
othercountries (such as Argentina or Colombia) the country does not
have a single national qualityassurance system, nor a single (or
even a main) national agency. The same is true withrespect to other
transparency tools. Mexico has neither a national comprehensive
credit system, nor a national qualifications framework, nor a
common approach for the recognitionof foreign studies.
The following sections will first review the existing system of
quality assurance and thenthe current level of development of the
other transparency tools; a third and final sectionwill present the
series of measures that have been announced recently in
particularthrough the DGAIR in order to address the current
challenges for the Mexican approach toquality assurance,
transparency and recognition in higher education.
1. Overall structure of the Mexican quality assurance system
The most conspicuous aspect of Mexican quality assurance is its
large number of specialisedagencies promoted from either
governmental initiatives or by particular sectors of thehigher
education community, each with its different focus, methods and
impact. This makesthe whole system rather difficult to use and
understand, both for Mexicans and forforeigners.
1.1. Procedures and agencies in Mexican quality assurance
According to Mexican views the current system can best be
presented following thesuccessive levels of quality assurance, from
the most basic and compulsory ones to themore selective or
specialised ones. This can best be presented using the method
adoptedby the SEP of the Federal Ministry as a series of levels or
concentric circles.
First level: basic requirements for offering official studies
and professional qualifications
The first level corresponds to what may be called the licensing
of new institutions andcurricula. In order to establish new public
HEIs, the project needs to be assessed throughthe respective States
Commission on higher education planning (Comisin Estatal
dePlanificacin de la Educacin Superior COEPES) and the new
institution needs to be created
34
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by law (at the federal or State level) or in some cases (such as
for the brand new NationalOpen and Distance Education University)
by a decree of the President of the MexicanFederation. If private
HEIs wish to be able to offer official academic programmes theyneed
to obtain for each of them the (optional) governmental recognition
(Reconocimiento deValidez Oficial de Estudios RVOE). The RVOE makes
the private HEIs part of the NationalSystem of Education. Only
teachers' colleges (Escuelas Normales) need a prior
institutionalauthorisation/licence if they want to be integrated
into the National System of Education.The RVOE looks at basic
requirements concerning academic staff, campus facilities and
thecurriculum. It may be issued by the Federal Government (Ministry
of Education) or by a StateGovernment (local Ministry of
Education), usually after a review by the COEPES. Certainpublic
autonomous universities of either the federa