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 .
Read more about this topic: State Of Mexico
Famous quotes containing the word education:
“Bigotry is the disease of ignorance, of morbid minds; enthusiasm of the free and buoyant. Education and free discussion are the antidotes of both.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“The fetish of the great university, of expensive colleges for young women, is too often simply a fetish. It is not based on a genuine desire for learning. Education today need not be sought at any great distance. It is largely compounded of two things, of a certain snobbishness on the part of parents, and of escape from home on the part of youth. And to those who must earn quickly it is often sheer waste of time. Very few colleges prepare their students for any special work.”
—Mary Roberts Rinehart (1876–1958)
“Nature has taken more care than the fondest parent for the education and refinement of her children. Consider the silent influence which flowers exert, no less upon the ditcher in the meadow than the lady in the bower. When I walk in the woods, I am reminded that a wise purveyor has been there before me; my most delicate experience is typified there.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)