State of Mexico - Education

Education

The state has over three million students who attend about 15,000 schools from kindergarten to high school. It is the largest school system in the country after that of Mexico City. However, as late as 1990, here were over half a million people who were illiterate over the age of 15.

The state university is the Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Mexico which offers 48 majors. This and other institutes of higher education have an enrollment of over 100,000 students. The beginnings of this institution go back to 1828, when the first Instituto Literario for the state was established in what is now the borough of Tlalpan in Mexico City. It was reestablished in Toluca in 1833. In 1886, the name was changed to the Instituto Cientifico y Literario. In 1943, the institution gained autonomy from direct state control and in 1956, it was reorganized ias the UAEM. In 1964, the Ciudad Universitaria on the west side of Toluca was constructed.

Another important public university is the Universidad Autónoma de Chapingo, located in Texcoco. It is an agricultural college offering technical and bachelor’s degrees. The school began as the Escuela Nacional de Agricultura (National School of Agriculture) which was founded in 1854 at the Monastery of San Jacinto in Mexico City. The school was moved in 1923 to the ex Hacienda of Chapingo President Álvaro Obregón. One distinguishing feature of the campus is the mural done in the old chapel, now University Ceremonies Room by Diego Rivera called “Tierra Fecundada” (Fertile Land). It is considered to be one of Rivera’s best works. More recently, the school acquired an unnamed mural by Luis Nishizawa. This work depicts the agriculture of Mexico in both the past and the present. It is placed in a building that is commonly called “El Partenon”. Other important educational institutions include the Universidad Technológica del Sur del Estado de Mexico and a campus of the ITESM .

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Famous quotes containing the word education:

    What education is to the individual man, revelation is to the human race. Education is revelation coming to the individual man, and revelation is education that has come, and is still coming to the human race.
    Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729–1781)

    The legislator should direct his attention above all to the education of youth; for the neglect of education does harm to the constitution. The citizen should be molded to suit the form of government under which he lives. For each government has a peculiar character which originally formed and which continues to preserve it. The character of democracy creates democracy, and the character of oligarchy creates oligarchy.
    Aristotle (384–323 B.C.)

    I am not describing a distant utopia, but the kind of education which must be the great urgent work of our time. By the end of this decade, unless the work is well along, our opportunity will have slipped by.
    Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)