On September 13, 2019, at the office of the Rectorado Histórico de la Universidad Nacional de Córdoba UNC (Historical Rector’s Office of the National University of Córdoba), the UNESCO International Institute for Higher Education in Latin America and the Caribbean (IESALC) presented the challenges that the region faces in terms of  integration and mobility, as well as the Institute’s future plans.

“In the next two years we have four challenges: on one hand, academic mobility and the opportunities that it brings. The bad news is that worldwide mobility between regions is increasing, but in Latin America it hasn’t begun”, said Francesc Pedró, director of IESALC, as part of the presentation “Metrics and credentials for mobility in Latin America”.

For the Institute, poles of attraction are being set up and 80% of Latin American students prefer Europe and the United States, and more recently China, as their destination. “Internationally the Region is not attractive: 80% of the foreign students who stay in the region are from the region itself and of the students who go abroad and stay in the region, half come to Argentina. These add up to about 80 thousand students per year, and that is good news in the best university sense of the term”, said Pedró.

With reference to the system’s other challenges of quality, equity and inclusion, he explained that there are movements in favor of university certification and evaluation mechanisms, which is manifested in the quality of the offer, although little is known about the equity: “We do not really know if with policies of free access, as exist in Argentina, we are enabling the most disadvantaged quintiles to have better access to the university (…) We need data to be provided in favor of more equity and for technologies to be considered as catalysts for the necessary transformations of higher education in the region”. He also announced the extension of the Institute’s range of action towards a global perspective in the next two years.

The rector of the UNC,institution that organized this meeting, said: “When we talk about Argentina recieving half of the students in the region, many of them come to study the whole career, basically because of our free system. But it is worrisome that Latin America does not have integration in its plans”, said Hugo Juri, according to the note published on the UNC Website.

Representatives of the following universities attended: UNC, Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA); Organización de Estados Iberoamericanos OEI (Organization of Ibero-American States); Instituto Universitario de Ciencias Biomédicas de Córdoba (Institute of Biomedical Sciences of Córdoba); Universidad Siglo 21 (21st  Century University); Universidad Provincial de Córdoba (Provincial University of Córdoba); Universidad Blas Pascal; Universidad Nacional de Río Cuarto (University of Rio Cuarto); Universidad Tecnológica Nacional UTN (National Technological University); Universidad Católica de Córdoba (Catholic University of Córdoba);Córdoba Ministry of Education and Instituto Universitario Aeronáutico  (Aeronautical University Institute).

Photo and texts taken from the original article published on the UNC Website