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:

    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)

    As long as learning is connected with earning, as long as certain jobs can only be reached through exams, so long must we take this examination system seriously. If another ladder to employment was contrived, much so-called education would disappear, and no one would be a penny the stupider.
    —E.M. (Edward Morgan)

    If you complain of neglect of education in sons, what shall I say with regard to daughters, who every day experience the want of it? With regard to the education of my own children, I find myself soon out of my depth, destitute and deficient in every part of education. I most sincerely wish ... that our new Constitution may be distinguished for encouraging learning and virtue. If we mean to have heroes, statesmen, and philosophers, we should have learned women.
    Abigail Adams (1744–1818)