According to data from the World Bank, in Mexico the fertility rate in adolescents aged 15 to 19 was 58.54 in 2019. In other words, of the births per 1,000 women, 58 occurred in young people of that age range.
By 2021, the fertility rate increased to 67.7, according to data from the National Population Council (Conapo).
The scholarship for pregnant students
In 2004, the Scholarship Program to Support Basic Education for Young Mothers and Pregnant Young Women (Promajoven) was created in order to reduce the educational gap of adolescents between the ages of 12 and 19 in these conditions. In 2014, it was included in the National Scholarship Program as a component.
During the current government, the Promajoven component was incorporated into the Elisa Acuña Scholarship Program, it is explained in the study Impact of the Scholarship Program to Support the Basic Education of Young Mothers and Pregnant Young Women: an exploratory study with a qualitative approachof the National Council for the Evaluation of Social Development Policy (Coneval).
“In 2020, through the Elisa Acuña Scholarship Program (…) the Promajoven component is continued; however, in accordance with the 2020 Operating Rules of the Program, only scholarship recipients who were incorporated until the end of fiscal year 2019 are served, which indicates that the target population that was not previously served is not being supported, ”explains the study.
This scholarship program received in 2022 a budget of 107 million 199,664 pesos to provide 12,500 scholarships. However, as of March of this year, the program had not used the resources, according to its First Quarterly Report for 2022.
In addition, for the following year the PPEF does not contemplate resources for the Elisa Acuña Scholarship Program.