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How are we doing on educational quality in Mexico,and how business leadership can help improveeducational quality for local economic

competitiveness?

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Why is educational quality so important to theeconomy?

Everyone knows that more education and more skillsincreases productivity and wages, but I want tomention a few aspects of the economic returns toeducation that I think are under-appreciated.

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A second point that is sometimes underappreciatedabout education and skills is that what is importantis not only hard skills, but soft skills. By hardskills I mean whatever is measured by tests ofliteracy, math, or other academic skills. By soft skills,I mean social skills, the ability to deal well with otherpeople, as well as the ability to be able to plan and

organize ones actions to achieve some desired goal.

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Therefore, it isnt so much an issue of theeducational system deteriorating. If anything, theeducational system might be improving somewhat.Rather, the issue is the gap between the needs of ourlocal and national economies economy for morepeople with more hard skills and soft skills, and thedifficult challenge the educational system faces in

dramatically improving those skills.

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What can be done to significantly increase thequality of the educational system, and indeed ourentire skills development system, in producinghigher levels of both hard and soft skills for a broad

range of the population of Mexico?

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What can businesses do to advance reformsthat will increase educational quality?

First, they can advocate for better public policies.

Second, businesses can provide financial support. Ata small scale, businesses can provide scholarships.

Third, in the career education area, businesses canbecome more involved in the technical educationsystem.

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Conclusion

To sum up, the local educational systems quality isabsolutely key to long-run economic growth and percapita income in Mexico, because a high qualityeducation system both grows and attracts skilledpeople, and skilled people have profound effects onthe productivity and productivity growth of area

businesses.

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