Sheinbaum Doubles the Education Goal: Announces 400,000 New Public High School Places

ByNéstor Jiménez

This article by Néstor Jiménez originally appeared in the August 8, 2026 edition of La Jornada, Mexico’s premier left-wing daily newspaper.

Texcoco, State of Mexico.— President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo doubled the goal for opening high school places during her six-year term. This Saturday she announced that her administration’s objective will be to open 400,000 new places at this educational level, after having set a target of 200,000 this past April.

Inaugurating a campus of the Agricultural Technological Baccalaureate Center in Texcoco, as part of the Comprehensive Eastern Zone Plan, the President explained that the increase responds to rising demand.

“Today two objectives come together. On the one hand, increasing the number of high schools across the country, because many young people who finish middle school still don’t have access to high schools near their homes. They have to travel very far, and that makes them not go to school. And young people have to be in school, so that’s why we’re building many high schools.

“Today there are 200,000 more places in the country, and very soon we’re going to announce that demand at the high schools has been so high that we will at least double the goal. It will be at least 400,000 places that we develop during the six-year term for high school education across the country,” said Sheinbaum Pardo.

Referring to the Plan Oriente, which was launched in eleven municipalities in the State of Mexico, she said the intention is to create in each of those municipalities at least one high school and one university, either Rosario Castellanos or Benito Juárez, as well as drinking water and drainage works. Accompanied by the Governor of the State of Mexico, Delfina Gómez, she noted that this Plan also includes water treatment plants and the repaving of roads, benefiting approximately 10 million inhabitants of this area.

Regarding the construction of this new educational space, the Secretary of Public Education, Mario Delgado, said that, like this school, 20 have been built across the country and another 30 are under construction.

“And in addition, each and every one of them has their Benito Juárez scholarship. More than 4.3 million young people have their Benito Juárez scholarship. And the Rita Cetina scholarship, which covers 5.6 million middle-school students, and the Rita Cetina scholarship for school supplies and uniforms, which these days is already being deposited for nearly 10 million boys and girls. Even if the opposition gets angry, even if the right gets angry, it is President Claudia Sheinbaum’s conviction that education is a right and that no one can be left unable to study for lack of economic resources. It is the most important scholarship plan in the history of Mexico,” the federal official added.

Amid the shout of “teachers with Claudia,” chanted by teachers from various educational levels who witnessed the ribbon-cutting that inaugurated the campus, the Secretary of Infrastructure, Communications and Transportation, Jesús Esteva, detailed that the project involved an investment of 50 million pesos for its construction, which began in June of last year and finished in April of this year.

It has more than 3,000 square meters of buildings, 12 classrooms, laboratories and an administrative area. In addition, construction began on the second stage, which consists of another 2,500 square meters focused on agricultural, dairy, poultry and pig production.