Curricular Model of National Institute of Technology of Mexico (Tecnológico Nacional de México)

"National Institute of Technology of Mexico" (in Spanish: "Tecnológico Nacional de México") as a decentralized body of the Mexico Ministry of Public Education, which has 266 affiliated institutes throughout the country and serves an enrollment of 556,270 students, seeks to offer top quality education geared towards the needs of the social, scientific, technological, economic, cultural and human development of Mexico. In this context, this article describes the definition of the curricular model used. This model is based on the idea of the syllabus as an integrated training project, which underlies on the concepts of professional training, learning and educational practice, providing sense and meaning to the educational content, tasks of teachers and students, learning and teaching strategies, educational products and processes, as well as, design, implementation, development, monitoring and assessment of academic programs. Currently, this model has designed and innovated 43 study plans with a focus on competence, which multiplied by the number of times offered in 266 schools, added more than 1,300 educational programs across the country. It is worth mentioning that for the design and innovation of these programs more than 35 national meetings were held in Mexico with the involvement of over 4,500 teachers. This model allows a greater flexibility, knowledge and know-how integration, and thus, promote continuous student learning, boosts the development of professional competencies for knowledge application and real problem-solving through the fulfillment of projects and promotion of ethical training as well as the encouragement of environmental care.