The Education Reform in Mexico. New rules for higher education institutions?

Author: Pedro Flores Crespo y César García García
Abstract: Why should we be concerned about the impact of the Mexican Education Reform, which focuses on the evaluation of basic and upper secondary education, on the country´s higher education institutions? By applying the new institutionalism approach (North, 1994; Helmke y Levitsky, 2004; Schmidt, 2010), with its applications for the Mexican higher education sector (Acosta, 2014; Ordorika, 2014), this article argues that there are three reasons why the heis should take an interest in what occurs at earlier levels of the education system: first, because the reform impacts the way public high schools operate;
second, because there is a need for improved quality control mechanisms at the university level; and third, because the heis can improve their critical analysis skills regarding government education proposals. Public autonomous universities possess the capacity to act independently and criticize freely.