LATIN AMERICA: New Latin American HE book hopes to build bridges

The Institute of International Education (IIE) in the United States has published a book that explores the policies, institutions and programmes that have helped transform the Latin American higher education landscape over the past three decades.

Latin America’s New Knowledge Economy: Higher education, government, and international collaboration, launched in New York this month by the IIE and the American Institute for Foreign Study, has assembled contributions from US-based scholars and policy-makers.



Its authors consider outcomes and key issues associated with these changes in terms of the autonomy, organisation and governance of Latin American institutions, challenges associated with achieving greater social equity in and access to higher education, workforce training and development, trends in academic mobility and research, and investment in the region by American universities and corporations.

In the introduction, the publication's editor and senior research scholar and adjunct professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, Jorge Balán, observes that Latin American policy leaders have increasingly focused their attention on dealing with issues of access and social inequality in higher education.

They have acknowledged that “unequal access to quality education reflects, and reinforces, inequality”.

Thus, while educational opportunities have improved dramatically for women since the 1960s and have helped “iron out gender differences in access and graduation”, there is still work to be done.

Women remain underrepresented in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) areas, and inequity in employment rates and salary differentiation persist.

Educational policies over the past two decades devoted to redressing inequity associated with social minorities have had varying success in their attempt to “fight against the heritage of many centuries of oppression and neglect, a heritage rooted at the local and regional levels where national policies were often counteracted by stronger social and political forces”.

This is especially so in countries with large populations of people of indigenous and-or African descent, for example, Mexico, Central America, Peru, Bolivia, and north-eastern Brazil.

The case of Brazil

Given its global prominence, Brazil’s efforts to build its higher education profile is the focus of two chapters.

Brazil now produces more than half of all research and doctoral degrees in the region. Balán says it is “the only country with a significant number of research universities”. Even though the figure is lower than the OECD average, the country spends well over 1% of gross national product on research and development.

“Most basic research is now concentrated in [Brazil’s] higher education sector…with a clear trend also favouring applied research and better relations with industry.”

One such initiative is detailed in an interview with Education Minister Aloízio Mercadante, who discusses the Ciência sem Frontieras, Brazil’s scientific mobility programme.

The goal is to support 100,000 Brazilian students and researchers for up to one year of non-degree study, academic training and internships at universities in the US and Europe over the next four years.

Americas mobility initiative

The US State Department is also set on the number 100,000 – that is, through the implementation and realisation of the ‘100,000 Strong in the Americas’ initiative, a programme to promote increased international educational exchanges between the US and Latin America and the Caribbean.

“Our goal is to reach 100,000 annual exchanges in each direction by 2020,” explains Meghann Curtis, deputy assistant secretary of state for academic programmes at the US State Department.

Curtis and co-author Lisa Kraus, policy advisor in the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, US State Department, emphasise in chapter seven that partnered efforts to build an international education infrastructure will help train innovators, entrepreneurs and future leaders throughout the western hemisphere.

Announced in 2011, the project is President Barack Obama’s “signature education initiative in the Americas”, notes Curtis.

She adds: “It will increase mutual understanding, build closer people-to-people ties, and deepen our partnership with the people of the western hemisphere to address common challenges including improving citizen security, economic opportunity, social inclusion and environmental sustainability.

“The 100,000 Strong [initiative] also forges enduring links that facilitate greater cooperation between government, academia, civil society and the private sector and ultimately strengthens our educational systems. International education enriches and deepens the educational experience for students, faculty, institutions and communities.”

There is no doubt that all these efforts bode extremely well for realising hemisphere cooperation in higher education, as IIE President and CEO Allan Goodman explains:

“Leaders who seek to build a strong knowledge economy in their countries know that investment in higher education is the key to this growth. ”

He adds: “We hope this book will encourage educators and policy-makers in Latin America and the United States to engage in educational relationships that foster further higher education opportunities between the two regions.”