Abstract:

The target population of this Programme is students enrolled in public secondary schools (there is no age limit to be enrolled in the Programme). The main objective of PREBU is to avoid the drop out of the students in the mid-higher education level.

This Programme was launched in 2007 in Mexico City by the head of the local government, Marcelo Ebrard Casaubon, as a part of the social policy of the city. It is important to mention that it is a Programme unique in Mexico and it represents the second largest Programme in Mexico’s city with around 200,000 beneficiaries.

Under this context, the paper will describe the creation and operation of the Programme, but also it will demonstrate the outcomes of the evaluation after the first five years of operation. The evaluation of the Prepa Sí Programme is carried out every academic year, taking into account the components of the following assessments: design, coverage, operation, results and impact.

The components of the assessment of the Scholarship Programme for Universal Upper-secondary Education (PREBU, Prepa Sí) for each academic year are described below:

• Evaluation of Design: It evaluates the relevance of the Programme in regard to the social needs that was meant to address as well as the coherence in respect of the objectives, goals and strategies of the Social Policy in Mexico City and the consistency of its elements.
• Operative and Results Evaluation: It analyses the resources and processes linked to the implementation of the Programme in order to assess its efficiency and effectiveness, in economic-financial terms as well as in terms of its organization and its management. In the case of the Prepa Sí Programme, the processes of the operative departments (the PREBU Department, the Informatics Department, the Administration and Finance Department and the Contact Centre Department) are assessed.
• Impact Evaluation and Satisfaction. In this component the set of expected, non-expected, direct and indirect effects of the Programme on the target population are assessed, particularly, the extent of the socio-economic effects of the Programme on the citizens’ quality of life and satisfaction.

The assessment is undertaken based on the Logical Framework Methodology. This methodology allows identifying and defining the indicators used to evaluate each of the Programme’s components, the achievement of the Programme’s goals and the contribution to its cause. The evaluation allows identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the Programme and improving its performance. The assessment is based on quantitative and qualitative analysis and it uses off-site and fieldwork data; off-site data refers to the statistics of Upper-secondary Institutions and data from the National Statistics Centre, while the fieldwork data is gathered through surveys. These surveys are conducted among the Programme beneficiaries every semester. The fieldwork data is also generated through the surveys that are conducted annually among the officials responsible of operating the Program. The latter allows performing a quasi-quantitative analysis and therefore an integral assessment.

Keywords:

Higher Education Drop out, Government Education Policies.