Mexican telesecundaria : a cost-effective analysis

The Telesecundaria is the largest and most important undertaking of this kind in Mexico today. It uses television to provide a full, three-year secondary education to students who, for a wide variety of reasons, would not otherwise have access to schooling beyond the 6th grade. In 1965, the number of primary school graduates unable to enter secondary school in Mexico was over 180,000 or about 37 percent of the previous year"s 6th graders. This was particularly true in rural areas where primary schools are small and secondary schools are, for the most part, non-existent and economically unfeasible. For these reasons, the Telesecundaria (hereinafter, TS) system was started. After an encouraging pilot experiment, TS open broadcasting began in 1968 for the Federal District and for the seven states of Hidalgo, Mexico, Morelos, Oaxaca, Peubla, Tlaxcala, and Veracruz. Table 1 shows the rapid growth of the system.