**Table 1: Characteristics of EMS by service providers, %**

||Federal|State|Autonomous|Private|
|---|---|---|---|---|
|Share of total enrollment|21.8|47.4|12.3|18.6|
|Students with insufficient math achievement level|62.6|73|52|61|
|Students that have a job|35.1|37.8|37.5|33.3|
|Students with scholarship|46.4|47.3|36.7|20.9|
|Mother with higher education|7.3|4.2|11.7|22.6|
|Father with higher education|9.2|5.2|14.4|24.2|
|More than 25 books at home|66.5|60.3|69.9|77.9|
|PC at home|70.2|56.5|73.2|83.4|

_Sources: Context survey PLANEA 2016. The sample includes students who answered the 12_<sup>_th_</sup> _grade context survey; INEE, Panorama Educativo 2016 and National results of PLANEA 2016-2017._ EMS schools run by the federal government tend to be large with an average of 1,159 students usually split in morning and evening shifts. Federal EMS schools located in the metropolitan area of Mexico City (CDMX from now onwards), are particularly large with an average of 2,200 students with most of them having morning and afternoon shifts. The EMS system is characterized by some strict promotion criteria. Students must pass five out of eight disciplinary subject areas and practical modules per semester. Otherwise they must repeat the semester. Students who fail three or fewer subject areas can enroll in the next semester, but they must attend and pass leveling courses during a time window to be determined by each school on a case-by-case basis. In addition, students must satisfactorily complete all their subject areas and modules—completed after 6 semesters when students show no delay—within, at most, 10 semesters after enrolling in EMS. Otherwise they lose the right to re-enroll and therefore the chance of having a high school diploma. Partly because of the strict promotion rules, grade repetition rates are high, 15.6 percent in 2015.<sup>3</sup> According to the 2009 Survey of EMS Dropouts (Encuesta Nacional de Deserción en la Educación Media Superior), subject repetition is the second most common reason—after financial constraints—mentioned as a reason for early dropout.<sup>4</sup> In 2016, 15.5 percent of enrolled students dropped out of upper secondary, on average. These average repetition rates translate into an ontime graduation rate of 60 of every 100 students enrolled in EMS. More than half of total dropouts in EMS take place during the first year, with a large share of them concentrated during the first semester. A dimension that shows a large correlation with dropouts is household income. In 2012, according to the “National Evaluation Council”, CONEVAL, 59.5% of young people between 15 to 18 years old, the standard age to be enrolled in upper secondary education, who were not enrolled in school were concentrated in the poorest 50%.

> 3 Students who fail three or more subjects for two consecutive semesters have to repeat the entire grade.

> 4 Jacob and Lefgren (2009) use a plausibly exogenous variation in retention generated by a test-based promotion policy in the United States to show that retaining low-achieving eighth grade students in elementary school substantially increases the probability that these students will drop out of high school.

6