Higher Education in Mexico: The Quest to Become More-Competitive Globally David Felsen - IBTimes
go to original October 25, 2013

Since Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto took office at the end of 2012, his government has proceeded to address some important policy challenges.

The administration has tackled energy reform to open up the country’s state oil monopoly to foreign investment and to develop global partnerships in the energy sector. The government also recently introduced an education reform with a view to raising teaching standards and holding Mexican teachers more accountable at the K-12 level, through changes such as the introduction of across-the-board performance evaluations. Furthermore, the government’s recent autumn tax bill seeks to improve efficiency in the country’s tax system.

However, despite the positive measures undertaken during President Peña’s first year in office, numerous challenges remain across a range of sectors. These include issues that impact the country’s global competitiveness, not the least of which is higher education. In September the 2013 QS World University Rankings - considered by many to be the gold standard of rankings in global higher education - came out with its list of the world’s top universities. And the telling stat? Mexico did not have a single university represented within the top 100. Nor, for that matter, did Brazil or India. China produced only one Top 100 school. The Top 10 schools were all located either in the United States or the United Kingdom.

There was some disappointment among Latin American countries with the QS rankings. That said, the rankings themselves cannot fully capture the progress made by Mexican, Brazilian and other Latin American institutions in strengthening their academic standards and in raising their global profiles in recent years.

Read the rest at IBTimes

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