Education and Employment in Mexico: Some Thoughts on Specific and Feasible Policies. IDS Discussion Paper No. 55.

This paper discusses the education section of a 1974 study group (GEPE) report commissioned by the Mexican government to consider the problems of unemployment, income distribution, and poverty. The author welcomes the report's broad educational proposals, such as the priority given to rural adult education and rural primary education, as well as many of the specific suggestions made in connection with the priority tasks. However, he argues that such policies are not likely to be successful unless they are based on a more serious concern with data requirements, and that more awareness is needed of the differential needs of different groups and the reasons for the past failure of similar proposals. In his discussion, he focuses mainly on institutional problems related to adult education and on the structures and processes which appear to have hampered rural primary education. (Author/JG)