Mexico vs India Education System

In looking at the education of the countries of Mexico and India, we expect that political candidates and parties influence the kind of education their country has because in our modern world, much of the progress that is developed has to do with the kind of education their people have. Education is a key institution that has been around for centuries, however as politics change in each country, education becomes more and more vital to the importance of the progress of each country.

How does education in Mexico compare to the education in India? Education in Mexico and India are different in that, in India, as noted in the book: “Countries and Concepts: politics, geography, culture,” Michael G. Roskin argues that: “Education in India is largely a state matter–the case in federal systems generally–and some states either do not have the money or spend it on other things. Public schools in India charges fees the very poor cannot afford” (356).

And in Mexico, the amount of violence and corruption has also lead to other very negative scenarios “In addition to its obvious injustice, maldistribution of income has several other negative consequences.

Some Mexicans go hungry, and many do not earn even the minimum daily wage of $4.50″ (386). This shows that there is a lot of difference in the educational systems in these two countries because India has a lot of problems in their education system due to corruption and poverty as well as Mexico. Both their educational systems are driven by a system of who has the money to pay their children to get out of the class they were born in.

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And this has lead to the slow development of people in poorer communities because there is no real progress happening with everyone, but only with a small elite class who can afford to have their children placed in better education systems. Education is the driving force for the poor, middle and elite class and thus leaves space available for different classes to maintain their status and continue to control the way things are run in their country.

Mexico is a country that has moved passed a lot of revolutions and has tried to implement a democracy. Unfortunately, the political system in Mexico has not allowed for the education system should be fully performed in equal throughout the entire nation. In fact, there is also authoritarian ideas in Mexico’s educational system. In his publication of Authorianism and Education, Simpson argues that there is a relationship between education and authoritarian.

He argues: “Unlike the United States and Costa Rican samples, the Mexican sample was a stratified sample which over-sampled urban areas. The findings are based on 1,126 persons who constitute a close approximation to the population of Mexico living in urban areas of 2,500 persons or more” (Simpson, 6). Basically what this implies is that not every person in the state and accounted for and the education is not necessarily equal. Simpson also argues that: “In fact as of 1963, the Mexican educational system seems to have little effect on authoritarianism” (10). This shows that the system has gotten to a point that there is no true chance for change in their beliefs.

Another thing we have to consider is that, as de Knauth has stated in his book of Mexico: Education and National Integration: “Geography, as well as history, has put obstacles in the path of Mexico’s development” (de Knauth, 2). As de Knauth also states, “Education was declared free and obligatory for children between seven and fifteen years, plans were drawn up for the focusing of a Normal School” (de Knauth, 5).

But even though education seems as though it is free and equal for everyone to have, we know that poverty leads to children not going to school since they have to go out and work, then we also have to consider that the schools where those rural children live in are not the same as the schools where elite students go to. De Knauth also mentions that: “Only the ‘criollos’, the top class of Mexican society succeeded in developing a sense of national identity…” (de Knauth, 2). De Knauth says that there has been such a divide in the system of the country that only a specific class of the people have been able to develop as people who identify as “Mexicans”. In that same way, there are privileges in India.

In India, there is a public education system, however, this system charges fees in order to be able to enter the system, and sometimes the families of children who come from developing parts of the country are not able to afford these tariffs, therefore they do not go to school. Talking about India’s education system, Johnson argues that “It is a hopeful sign for India, that the most engrossing subject of public interest for the greater part of last year was the education of the people” (Johnson, 2). What Johnson also fails to mention is that even though education is a main focus, it is only focused for a particular class in the country.

He then later on comes to say: “In speaking of these 1,893,528 pupils attending primary schools (table III,Col. 7), which are either directly or indirectly connected with Government, we must not allow it to be supposed that these are the only schools in India” (Johnson, 13). So, what we are coming to now is that the children of these elite schools are from the government sector and have been in some way connected to the people in government; but what happens to the children who have no direct or indirect connections with the government? Unfortunately, education for them is a harder thing to achieve.

There are also a lot of arguments that have been developed to say that there needs to be more equity and excellence in Indian education. Nambissan and Batra argue, “What is evident, however, is that beneath the rhetoric of excellence is the slow but steady shift away from even a semblance of equity and social justice that was beginning to characterize schooling in these countries in the sixties and early seventies” (Nambissan and Batra, 2). If there was really a change in the social construct of the system. If there was a way of being able to implement the free education system that Mexico has, I think that India would be so much better off.

At the same time, the Mexican system has huge faults. De Knauth also notes, “In the realm of secondary education, positivism was to be the means for developing a certain amount of uniformity of opinion which would, it was hoped, lead in time first to order and then to progress” (de Knauth, 7). If there were changes in the secondary education system in Mexico, the country would be better able to progress. The education system in Mexico has also found a way of moving away from the religious instruction it used to have and now has a lay of ethics.

One other note about India is that: “around 79 per cent of the 13,804 children admitted to Navodaya Vidyalayas were from rural primary schools” (Navodaya Vidyalayas, 15). Meaning that the majority of students in these schools are known as “gifted” and are placed in these schools, if they can afford it, and later on become part of the business sector. So, you may ask: what’s the program? There are plenty students that are being educated. The real problem is that this only accounts for about 41 percent of all the students in rural areas, which means that about 59 percent of students are not entering the system, and are not developing their abilities to learn since they cannot afford to enter the public school systems. So, how do the two systems compare?

We have to consider that Mexico and India are basically on different continents but yet, they have very similar corrupt ways of going about their education. Mexico has developed a system that seems to give free education to all the citizens of its nation, however this education system is flawed in the same way that India has an education system that is only offered for those who can afford it. In Mexico, the education that children receive is free but it also differs from region to region, and the people from the elite class have a more centralized and educated way of learning than the people who live in rural and undeveloped regions of Mexico.

India has “public schools” that can only really be afforded by people who are not poor. So, the children of parents who come from a poor background do not have the same opportunity to get an education because they have to work and make sure to do what they can do get food on the table. Both Mexico and India limit the amount of education a child can get, and this education is unfortunately founded on the ability to afford it and overall, the economic status of the family. Despite the fact that these countries have very different histories, their education system has resulted in very similar spheres, and overall it is due to the lack of equal opportunities given to all the people of the country.