The former mayor of Mexico's most violent city, speaking at UCSD on Saturday, said the breakdown in Ciudad Juárez can be attributed largely to a lack of educational opportunities for young people.

"Juárez is the city with the largest dropout rate in junior high school in the country," said ex-Mayor José Reyes Ferriz during a panel discussion on poverty along the U.S.-Mexico border at the fourth annual Clinton Global Initiative University Meeting at the University of California at San Diego.

"It is the city with the lowest rate of students in high school. That lack of opportunities in education, of higher type of work is what is affecting the kids," said Reyes Ferriz, who was mayor from 2007 until last year.

He said employment is not a problem because of the jobs produced by the maquiladora industry but government was slow developing social programs for young people to keep them in school and out of trouble.

More than 3,000 people were killed last year, mainly in drug-related violence, in Ciudad Juárez, which is across from El Paso, Texas. The Mexican military is now involved in the war against drug cartels in the region.

The city, with help from the federal government, is also tackling the social problems by opening more day-care centers and building more schools, the mayor said.

"The areas where there are no high schools, no opportunities, those are the areas where the violence develops most," he said, referring to Ciudad Juarez's troubled west side.

"It's incredible that a city of 1.3 million has one high school for 600,000 population. It's something that shouldn't happen," he said.

The Mexican government is in the process of building five new high schools on the city's west side.

"We're going to see the benefits in the future. Unfortunately, it doesn't happen overnight. It takes a while to do it."

He told the audience of about 100 mostly college-age students that the violence in Juarez has escalated much like it did in Tijuana a few years ago and people are looking to government to make things better.

"It's a real problem," he said. "It's not something invented by the press. You have to try to solve this and the government is doing that."

(The public and private sectors in Tijuana have recognized the need to provide educational and social services to the city's densely populated east side, where drug-trafficking and its violence have become common. This week, new Mayor Carlos Bustamante proposed to build two high schools there. The state government sponsors music and art projects in that zone. After a ten-year fund-raising effort, a children's museum opened there in late 2008. And the soon-to-open Museo Ambar will present the dangers of drug addiction to young audiences.)

More than 1,000 students and several nationally known leaders, including former President Bill Clinton, and celebrities, including actor Sean Penn, are participating in the three-day conference, which focuses on issues such as education, environment, peace and human rights, poverty alleviation and public health.

Leonel.sanchez@sandiegored.com