Financing for equity in primary and secondary education
1. Education resources to subnational governments
2. Education resources to schools
3. Education resources to students and families
4. Social policies and family support programmes
Introduction
In Mexico, federal transfers are the backbone of state revenues, accounting for about 90 percent of their income. These transfers take three principal forms: federal tax revenue shares (participaciones), which represent about 38% of states’ revenues; federal grants earmarked for mandated expenditures (aportaciones), amounting to roughly 40% of states’ revenues; and ad hoc federal transfers for sector-specific expenditure agreements (convenios), which make up approximately 10% of subnational revenues.
Within this framework, the main schemes for revenue sharing and equalization is the Fondo General de Participaciones (FGP). In education, under conditional transfers, the central instrument is the Fondo de Aportaciones para la Nómina Educativa y Gasto Operativo (FONE). For capital investment in social infrastructure at the state and municipal levels, the main funds are the Fondo de Infraestructura Social para las Entidades (FISE) and the Fondo de Aportaciones para la Infraestructura Social (FAIS).
In Mexico, the Secretaría de Educación Pública (Ministry of Public Education) coordinates the allocation and oversight of federal education resources across all levels of education. Education funding is primarily delivered through federal transfers to state governments which finance the operation of basic education services. In addition, certain programs provide direct funding to schools, especially for infrastructure improvements and community-led projects.
While the federal government, through the SEP, retains primary responsibility for national education policy design, standards, and strategic planning, including curricula and regulatory frameworks such as teacher certification and performance standards, state governments oversee the decentralized operation of basic education and exercise administrative autonomy over school operations and resource implementation. This includes the hiring and administration of teaching personnel, daily school management, and the execution of education budgets within the national framework.
OECD Education GPS illustrated the flow of public funding for public primary and lower secondary educational institutions in Mexico in 2019.
1. Education resources to subnational governments
Fondo General de Participaciones (FGP)
The main revenue-sharing transfer from the federal to state governments is the General Fund for Revenue-Sharing Transfers (FGP), which is the main mechanism through which the federal government transfers resources to states and municipalities. It represents 20% of the recaudación federal participable (federal tax and duty revenues) to be distributed among them, with the aim of compensating for their contributions to national wealth and providing financial support to subnational public finances. Its allocation also seeks to incentivize local revenue and economic growth in each state.
The Fondo de Aportaciones para la Nómina Educativa y Gasto Operativo - FONE is coordinated by the Ministry of Public Education. Its purpose is to provide states with complementary financial resources to carry out their responsibilities in basic and teacher education. The funds assigned through FONE contribute to the consolidation of the National Education System (SEN), strengthening educative systems in the states that can use these resources to cover personnel expenditures, operational costs, compensation funds, and other current expenses.
These resources are specifically intended to support planning, training, operation, verification, monitoring, promotion, and dissemination of basic education services.
Additionally, the SEP also has budget programmes that transfer resources from the federal level to the treasuries or finance departments of state governments to be allocated to educational institutions. For instance, the Programme for Inclusion and Educational Equity (federal budget programme S244), operating until 2019, aimed to "increase coverage, inclusion, and educational equity". The PIEE, launched in 2014 as part of the Programa de la Reforma Educativa, targeted students in vulnerable situations. It focused on indigenous populations, migrants, remote-learning secondary students, and special education students in highly marginalised areas. Of the resources allocated to PIEE, 65 per cent supports indigenous and migrant education, while 35 per cent is directed to special education and remote secondary education.
2. Education resources to schools
La Escuela es Nuestra (The School is Ours)
The federal programme La Escuela es Nuestra (PLEEN) promotes school community participation through the provision of subsidies aimed at improving infrastructure conditions and services in public education centers. It serves basic education institutions (early childhood, pre-primary, primary, and lower secondary levels), Centros de Atención Múltiple (CAM), educational services provided by the Consejo Nacional de Fomento Educativo (CONAFE), and upper secondary education institutions. The programme supports infrastructure rehabilitation and expansion, extended school hours, and the provision of meal services.
The programme is implemented locally by the Comités Escolares de Administración Participativa (CEAP), which are composed of mothers, fathers or tutors, students, teachers, and school authorities (AE), and are freely elected by the school assembly. The CEAP is responsible for supervising and managing the use of programme resources according to the specific needs of each educational centre.
The selection of beneficiary schools follows a prioritization process that considers multiple criteria, including location in communities with significant shortcomings in essential services such as potable water supply, electricity, sanitation facilities, infrastructure for students with disabilities, internet connectivity, and access to computers.
In basic education, the school community determines the use of programme resources, selecting one or several options (improve and/or restore school infrastructure, facilities, and equipment through expansion, rehabilitation, modification, conditioning and upgrading of school spaces, ii. acquire essential equipment such as furniture, teaching materials and supplies, sports and/or artistic materials, safety equipment, and first aid resources, iii. strengthen academic performance and the comprehensive development of students by extending the school day to between six and eight hours, or, iv. provide meals for children and adolescents to support their health and well-being.)
The selection process depends on budget availability and is oriented toward reducing inequalities in school conditions and access to services.
Programa Fortalecimiento de los Servicios de Educación Especial (PFSEE)
The purpose of the Programme is to support the school retention of basic education students with disabilities and/or outstanding abilities who attend Special Education Services, through actions that support their educational trajectories and the comprehensive development of their abilities.
It focuses on implementing academic actions aimed at providing specialized educational support to students with disabilities and/or outstanding abilities, as well as complementary interventions that enhance their educational processes. It also provides specialized equipment and resources tailored to the educational needs of this population in order to support their learning and participation in school life.
The direct beneficiaries of the programme are the state governments. Indirect beneficiaries are students with disabilities and/or outstanding abilities who attend these services.
3. Education resources to students and families
Beca Universal de Educación Básica “Rita Cetina”
The “Rita Cetina” scholarship, formerly the Benito Juárez Basic Education Scholarship Programme, is a priority initiative of the Mexican Government administered by SEP through the Coordinación Nacional de Becas para el Bienestar Benito Juárez. It provides support to families with children enrolled in public pre-primary, primary, and lower secondary schools, regardless of socioeconomic status. However, priority is given to families with children and adolescents attending schools classified as priority schools or schools identified for targeted support, particularly those from low-income households.
Beneficiaries are categorized as either continuing families or newly enrolled participants. The programme provides a payment of 1,900 MXN per family every two months, with an additional 700 MXN for each upper secondary student in the household.
The programme aims to promote regular school attendance and ensure the continuity of basic education. As a universal and unconditional programme, it reflects the government’s commitment to strengthening the right to education through broad social investment and simplified administrative processes that eliminate complex eligibility requirements.
4. Social policies and family support programmes
The Becas para el Bienestar Benito Juárez programme
The Becas para el Bienestar Benito Juárez programme in Mexico was established in 2019 with the objective of promoting inclusive and equitable education by providing monetary scholarships to children, adolescents and young people from families in extreme poverty or high vulnerability. It replaced the educational components of the former PROSPERA Programa de Inclusión Social and operates nationally, giving priority to households in geographic areas of high marginalisation, indigenous populations or high violence.
The programme has three parts. The basic education scholarship supports families in extreme poverty with children from pre-primary to lower secondary and provides bimonthly transfers linked to school attendance. The universal upper-secondary scholarship covers all students in public upper-secondary schools and provides continued support as long as they remain enrolled. The Youth Writing the Future scholarship supports economically vulnerable tertiary students up to age twenty nine with regular bimonthly transfers.
Launched in 2019, the Support Programme for the Well-being of Children of Working Mothers aims to improve access to care and education, ensuring the full exercise of social rights for children, adolescents, and young people up to 23 years old who face vulnerability due to the absence of one or both parents.
The Programme includes two modalities: i) support for the well-being of children of working mothers; and ii) support for the well-being of children, adolescents, and young people in maternal orphanhood.
Under the first modality, the Programme provides financial support of 1,650 MXN every two months per child, increasing to 3,720 MXN for children with disabilities. Under the second modality, bimonthly financial support is provided according to age: 830 MXN for newborns up to 15 years of age; 1,130 MXN for those between 16 and 18 years of age; and 1,240 MXN for those between 19 and 23 years of age.
Additional considerations include whether the beneficiary belongs to an Indigenous community, has a disability, or is in a situation of orphanhood.
5. School meal programmes
Programa de Desayunos Escolares (School Breakfast Programme)
The School Breakfast Programme aims to ensure that children and adolescents attending official schools within the National Education System receive healthy, sufficient, and quality food. It targets vulnerable students in indigenous, rural, and urban areas with high or very high marginalisation. The programme distributes over 6 million daily food rations across more than 80,000 schools. Half of these rations are provided as “desayuno escolar caliente,” which include milk, fresh vegetables, wholegrain cereals, legumes or animal-based foods, and fresh fruit to meet nutritional quality standards. Implementation is led by the Sistema Nacional para el Desarrollo Integral de la Familia (DIF) in coordination with State and Municipal Systems. Management combines centralised and decentralised decision-making, with states playing a key role in programme evaluation, notably in Ciudad de México and Jalisco.
This profile was reviewed by Teresa Terrón-Caro, Rocío Cárdenas Rodríguez, Professors (titulares) from Universidad Pablo de Olavide, and by Verónica Hernández Tapia, Directora Académica de la Subsecretaría de Educación Básica.
