Mexico's Programa de Escuelas de Calidad (PEC) combines increased funding per student with significant training to principals in school management practices, especially in areas of parent participation, planning, organization, and accountability. Mexico began PEC as its first school-based management program in 2001. The program provides a fixed-amount, cash grant to schools in exchange for school planning and enhanced parent participation in most aspects of school operations through a school council. Mexico's education system is structured by level of education, from pre-primary to primary, lower secondary, secondary, and tertiary. School autonomy and accountability are key components to ensure education quality. The transfer of core managerial responsibilities to schools promotes local accountability, helps reflect local priorities, values, and needs, and gives teachers the opportunity to establish a personal commitment to students and their parents. There are five indicators of school autonomy and accountability that can help benchmark an education system's policies that enable school autonomy and accountability: school autonomy in budget planning and approval
school autonomy in personnel management
the participation of the school council in school finance
the assessment of school and student performance
and school accountability to stakeholders. This report focuses specifically on policies in the area of school autonomy and accountability.