Currently, a discussions are taking place within and outside the region regarding the changes that universities must carry out in order to adapt to new times. The Declaration of CRES 2008 emphasizes generating such changes “in order to address the problems of low levels of performance, delayed graduation, and student failure”.

María Egilda Castellanos, a former chancellor of the Universidad Bolivariana de Venezuela, here presents some of the initiatives that are taking place in Latin America in regard to these themes. In particular, she speaks of the proposals that Venezuela is developing in order to respond to new world needs.

Could you tell us about successful experiences of change in Latin American universities?

Of course in Latin America there are successful experiences of university transformation that basically have to do with some attempts that are taking place as well in Venezuela, and have to do with inclusion, quality, pertinence, knowledge management, and knowledge appropriation, particularly in public, more than in private universities. Of the countries of Latin America, Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico have very important research centres that have produced cutting edge knowledge. However, in my opinion there is a serious problem, above all in Brazil – not in Argentina and Mexico – in that inclusion in education, in terms of public education is decreasing and is quite dominated by private institutions. That is, Brazil, along with Colombia, is the country in which private education is growing the most rapidly.

In the case of Venezuela, what initiatives have been undertaken in order to foster the transformation of higher education?

In Venezuela, specifically after the year 2000, we can say that we have made a very important effort to transform Venezuelan society in all of its structures. Logically, education has escaped this trend because one of the guidelines of the Venezuelan government is to give priority to social development. And the two basic pillars of social development are education and health. Therefore, the efforts that have been made to transform education, and especially higher education, have been very significant.

First of all, the expansion of education to the entire national territory through the Sucre Mission and through the strategy of municipalisation. This has caused significant growth in education. We have gone from approximately 500,000 students in 1990 to two million and a half students in 2008.

On the other hand, the Universidad Bolivariana de Venezuela was created, which breaks away from the fragmentary conceptualization of knowledge.

There is also the case of the Escuela Latinoamericana de Medicina which has approximately 25,000 students, including foreign students. They also have a different training process, with future physicians carrying out direct work in hospitals, in CDIs, in Barrio Adentro clinics, etc. That is, it is humanistic training.

We can also cite the Misión Alma Mater, which is the great strategic project currently being carried out by the national government that seeks to transform 29 university institutes into experimental universities, as well as to construct jointly universities and specialized institutes.

Also of note is a project that is already functioning entitled the “Paulo Freire” Instituto de Agroecología Latinoamericano, which is a novelty, including in Latin America because it is directed at training peasants. Peasants are a class that is completely excluded in Latin America, and this project is aimed at training the children of peasants specifically in agro-ecology. The degree awarded is that of Advanced Agro-Ecology Technician and Agro-Ecology Engineer. There will be two degrees. These are some of the important changes in higher education in Venezuela of which we are proud.

Can you specify what are the elements that should be changed in Latin American higher education?

Besides inclusion, I believe that basic structural changes are key that have to do with ways of thinking, the ways of conceiving knowledge, the ways of appropriating and managing knowledge, in student-teacher relations, and in the very logics that function within institutions of higher education, which is that of disciplines and that keeps institutions separated from one another.

The internal organization of departments does not allow for the integration of knowledge, and is harmful to the new forms that today are being used to produce knowledge. The cloistering of universities, the lack of relations between some universities and others from the point of view of cooperation, complementarity, solidarity between them, is what is happening. Basically, what there is is competition.

But this is what one seeks to overcome through work that is being carried out. For example, the first and most important change in this sense was the Universidad Bolivariana de Venezuela. Its curricular design is based on curricular nodes, which is integrated into professional training, with the political, cultural, aesthetic, and ludic nodes; the direct relation of the institution with communities and direct contact of students with them; organization not into departments, but in broad fields of knowledge; constant attention to student performance; constant attention to teacher performance; the on-going training of teachers are the elements that mark an important difference between the way universities are generally conceived in Latin America and this new Universidad Bolivariana.

María Egilda Castellano Ágreda de Sjöstrand is a sociologist of the Universidad Central de Venezuela. Her Graduate study includes: Master of Modern History of Venezuela, Master of Education, Mention: Higher Education, Universidad Central de Venezuela and Doctorate in Higher Education, UCV. From July 2007 to July 2008 Dr. Ágreda de Sjöstrand was an academic advisor to the People's Ministry of Higher Education, and was Chancellor of the Universidad Bolivariana de Venezuela from 2003-2004.

By Asdrubal Santana
UNESCO-IESALC

www.iesalc.unesco.org.ve