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The President of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, highlighted that, with the goal of guaranteeing the right to education for young people aged 15 to 18, the upper secondary level is being strengthened. Therefore, by the end of 2026, 200,000 new places will be created. This adds to the fact that in 18 states in the country, there are no longer entrance exams for high school, after the Metropolitan Area of the Valley of Mexico (ZMVM) replaced the Comipems test with the program ” My Right, My Place “.
“There will be 200,000 new places by the end of 2026, and we will evaluate the situation to continue opening more spaces. Young people between the ages of 15 and 18 need to be in school. And the government’s obligation is to open up every opportunity for them to be in school. The exam unfortunately created a perception that, depending on your score, you went to the best or the worst high school. So, if you got a 10, according to this system, you went to the best; and if you got a 6, you went to the worst—absurd—at age 15. All public schools should be good. In fact, all public schools are good.”
“This idea that ‘some are excellent and others not so much’ is false. There are different orientations: some are more focused on technical education, others more on general high school; but they are all good. And furthermore, we are improving the infrastructure of all of them. The ‘Our School’ program wasn’t previously part of upper secondary education; now it is. And we are also allocating significant resources to improve all upper secondary schools. We are improving the so-called ‘distance learning high schools’ and also the distance learning middle schools. But in the case of upper secondary education, the focus is on the distance learning high schools. And a new vision of teaching in accordance with the New Mexican School model,” he emphasized at the morning press conference: “The People’s Morning Briefings.”
She emphasized that the goal is for young people to feel accepted at school, since education contributes to reducing violence. To this end, programs like “We Miss You in the Classroom” are implemented, designed to reach out to those who stop attending school.
“What we want is to make progress in reducing the educational gap, so that more young people have access to upper secondary education, and also to higher education, because we are also expanding the number of universities. That is called ‘the right to education’: free education, quality education, secular education, and an education that allows young people to be integrated, not excluded,” he added.
The Secretary of Public Education, Mario Delgado Carrillo, pointed out that this year “My Right, My Place ” had a 10 percent increase in registrations compared to 2025, going from 272,793 to 307,241 enrolled students.
The Undersecretary of Upper Secondary Education, Tania Rodríguez Mora, reported that of the 307,241 applicants, 40 percent opted for the access route without an exam; 37 percent chose the option with or without an exam; 15 percent chose the exam option; and 8 percent did not select a modality. She announced that the results will be published on August 18, and that registration, assignment, and support for late applicants will take place from August 19 to 26.
He detailed that the 18 entities in which access to high school without exams will be guaranteed are: Baja California, Chihuahua, Mexico City, Colima, Durango, State of Mexico, Guerrero, Michoacán, Nayarit, Oaxaca, Puebla, Quintana Roo, Sonora, Tabasco, Tamaulipas, Tlaxcala, Yucatán and Zacatecas.
Live healthy, live happy, has assessed the health of nearly 10 million children
The Secretary of Public Education, Mario Delgado, highlighted that the ” Live Healthy, Live Happy ” strategy, launched on March 12, 2025, has assessed the health of 9.8 million elementary school students, representing 88.5 percent of the target population. He added that 79,773 schools have been visited, representing 93 percent. He also noted that in eight states, 100 percent of schools have been visited; seven states have reached 80 percent; five states have reached between 66 and 79 percent; three states have reached 65 percent; and nine states are currently conducting a second visit.
In 2025, Mexico went from first to eighth place in the list of the 10 countries with the most obesity in children between 5 and 19 years old, according to the World Obesity Federation’s 2026 World Atlas of Obesity.
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