Serious deficiencies in Jalisco’s educational infrastructure have been revealed in the first census of the country’s school network, whose results were released Monday.
Most alarmingly, around one-third of Jalisco 15,348 schools were found to either lack drainage or potable water.
The census was carried out by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI) at all public preschools, elementary and middle schools in the state.
Surprisingly, one-third of the educational facilities in Jalisco are constructed with either laminated, asbestos, metallic or cardboard roofs, the report noted.Between 89 and 96 percent of the schools have electricity, and between 93 and 96 percent have bathrooms.
Only a quarter of preschoolers have access to a computer and the Internet, a figure that rises to around 40 percent for primary school students. Computers are available to 88.8 percent of secondary school students and the Internet to 73.6 percent.
A total of 130,460 people work in Jalisco’s public schools, 88,359 of whom are teachers. According to the census, 1,709 teachers on the state payroll are unknown to staff at the schools where they are registered. These people are often referred to in Mexico as “aviadores” (aviators), as they “fly in and out” just to pick up their salaries.
Jalisco has 1,677,821 students attending preschool through middle school.
On a national level, some 21 million students attend public school. Of the 978,118 teacher positions registered, INEGI says around 13 percent are “nonexistent” and should not be in the databases.
In Jalisco, 1.2 percent of schools (188) did not participate in the census. Nationally, 90 percent of schools were counted.
States with the most severe deficiencies in their educational infrastructure were Guerrero, Veracruz, Chiapas, Michoacan and Oaxaca.