The law requires all childern in Mexico to attend school between 6 and 14 years of age.The rate of literacy is 87%.About 8 million students are enrolled in secondary school and colleges;of these,many attend regional technological institutes where training emphasizes skills needed for national development.
Mexico's present constitution was adopted in 1917and in much-amended form provides for a division of powers between the central government and the 31 states and the federal district (Mexico City).The president is elected by popular vote and is limited to one 6-year term.Despite the limite,the president has tremendous executive power.Mexico has a bicameral National Congress,composedof a Chamber of Deputies,With 500 members,and a Senate, with two senators from each state and the federal destrict.Judicial powers are vested in the Supreme Court of Justice.The Institutional Revolutionary party has dominated national politics since 1930.Its candidate in 1994,Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Le,became president that year.
Mexico's climate is hot and humide and the southern coastal areas but becomes increasingly arid toward the north.Temperatures decrease with increasing altitude. One of the most important features of Mexico's climate is the pronuced seasonality it expericences in rain fall distribution. The rainy season comes during the warmer half of the year, From May thourgh October; during those months moist winds blow on to the land from the adjoining oceans and are forced to rise up over mountainous areas, creating orographic precipitation.
Tropic cyclones add to summer rain fall. In the cooler half of the year, when the worlds wind belts shift southward, the Bermuda subtropical High dominates the climate of most of mexico and brings clear skies with almost no precipitation.
