UNESCO-IESALC

Top Menu

  • UNESCO.ORG
  • Español
  • English

Main Menu

  • THE INSTITUTE
    • About IESALC
    • Mission
    • Governing Board
    • Directory
  • Priorities
    • Internationalization and Academic Mobility
      • Recognition of Academic Degrees
      • New Regional Convention
      • Practical information for recognition by country
    • Quality and relevance
    • Equity and Inclusion
    • Innovation
    • From #CRES2018 to #WHEC2022
      • Regional Consultation for the #WHEC2022
  • Programs
    • Research
      • Futures of Higher Education
      • Academic Mobility
      • Response to COVID-19
      • The Right to Higher Education
      • SDGs
    • Capacity building
      • Campus IESALC
      • EDS Bootcamp 2022
    • Technical cooperation
      • Educational continuity in Peru (PMESUT)
    • Concerted advocacy
  • Publications
    • IESALC Publications
    • ESS Open Journal System
    • CRES 2018 Collection
  • Events
  • Blog
  • Contact us
  • UNESCO.ORG
  • Español
  • English

logo

Higher education for all

UNESCO-IESALC

  • THE INSTITUTE
    • About IESALC
    • Mission
    • Governing Board
    • Directory
  • Priorities
    • Internationalization and Academic Mobility
      • Recognition of Academic Degrees
      • New Regional Convention
      • Practical information for recognition by country
    • Quality and relevance
    • Equity and Inclusion
    • Innovation
    • From #CRES2018 to #WHEC2022
      • Regional Consultation for the #WHEC2022
  • Programs
    • Research
      • Futures of Higher Education
      • Academic Mobility
        • Virtual Student Mobility
      • Response to COVID-19
        • Reopening maps
      • The Right to Higher Education
      • SDGs
    • Capacity building
      • Campus IESALC
      • EDS Bootcamp 2022
    • Technical cooperation
      • Educational continuity in Peru (PMESUT)
    • Concerted advocacy
  • Publications
    • IESALC Publications
    • ESS Open Journal System
    • CRES 2018 Collection
  • Events
  • Blog
    • Public goods, common goods and global common goods: a brief explanation

      10 April, 2022
      0
    • Heightened focus on education after Kazakhstan’s deadly protests | Times Higher Education

      29 January, 2022
      0
    • Transforming the futures of higher education with and for youths

      23 January, 2022
      0
    • UNESCO IESALC hosts students from IE university to undertake a capstone project

      21 January, 2022
      0
    • Higher education on hold at home, students stranded abroad | University World ...

      14 January, 2022
      0
    • Past, present and future of higher education in the world

      16 December, 2021
      0
    • Webinar release – Launch of the report Pathways to 2050 and Beyond. Results of ...

      26 November, 2021
      0
    • Virtual student mobility for a post-pandemic world

      3 November, 2021
      0
    • Higher education in Latin America and the Caribbean, present and future

      19 October, 2021
      0
  • Contact us
InternationalInternationalization and Academic Mobility
Home›International›New scheme aims to boost student mobility within Latin America / ICEF Monitor

New scheme aims to boost student mobility within Latin America / ICEF Monitor

By Yara Bastidas
3 October, 2019
1368
0
Share:

The UNESCO International Institute for Higher Education in Latin America and the Caribbean (IESALC) has just published a new study that reveals that intra-regional mobility numbers are lower in the Latin American/Caribbean region than in Asia, Europe, and North America.

The study is entitled Mobility in Higher Education in Latin America and the Caribbean: Challenges and Opportunities of a Renewed Agreement for the Recognition of Studies, Degrees and Diplomas (2019), and it prompted a flurry of meetings over the summer to arrive at a strategy for boosting mobility in the region.

Most study outside of the region

The UNESCO study found that less than four in ten (38%) of the 312,000 Latin American and Caribbean students who studied abroad in 2017 remained in the region. Meanwhile, more than half (54%) chose to study in North America or Europe.

The most popular places within Latin America/Caribbean for students from the region are Argentina and Chile, which drew 84% and 87% of their foreign enrolments, respectively, from within the region.

The most attractive destinations in Latin America for international students from outside the region are Ecuador and Brazil. Just over half of international students in Brazil come from outside the region, many of them from Portugal, Spain, and the United States. Brazil also draws students from sub-Saharan Africa.

But overall, Latin America and the Caribbean are not hotspots for overseas students. In 2017, the region drew only 176,000 international students (a 3.5% share of the global total), 7 in 10 of which were from other Latin American/Caribbean countries. Another 12% came from North America and Western Europe.

New agreement

This past summer in Buenos Aires, representatives from 23 countries attended the International Conference of States organised by UNESCO. For three days, the delegates worked on an agreement to better harmonise education systems across Latin America and the Caribbean and thus pave the way for increased student mobility within the region. At the end of the conference, the representatives signed, on behalf of their countries, a new Convention for the Recognition of Studies, Diplomas and Higher Education Diplomas in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The signatory countries to the Convention are Argentina, Bahamas, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Granada, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Saint Kitts & Nevis, Uruguay and Venezuela.

The new agreement, also known as the “Buenos Aires Recognition Convention,” will commit all signatories to put “all the necessary measures” in place to allow for the recognition of various education credentials across the signatory countries. This, in turn, will make it easier for students to apply to and be accepted into other member countries’ education institutions. Smoothing such processes has been shown to be a major driver of intra-regional mobility (perhaps most notably in the EU where Erasmus+ allowed 800,000 Europeans to study, train, or volunteer in partner countries around the world in 2017).

The Buenos Aires Recognition Convention “will be implemented in synergy with the Global Convention on the Recognition of Qualifications Concerning Higher Education.” The secretariat for the new convention will be UNESCO’s International Institute for Higher Education in Latin America and the Caribbean (UNESCO-IESALC) in Caracas, Venezuela.

After the convention is ratified, credential evaluators will need to be trained and systems put in place to allow institutions to be able to easily assess Latin American students’ academic transcripts and diplomas/degrees. This, as is the case in all mobility agreements, will be a lengthy process, but at least the stage has now been set for it to happen.

A new step in internationalisation

Latin American students are no strangers to large-scale programmes aimed to enable them to travel abroad for study. For example, Mexico launched Proyecta 100,000 in 2013, a massive project intended to increase Mexican enrolments in US English-language training programmes to 100,000 by 2018. Canada has its own version of the initiative with Mexico: Proyecta 10,000.

Another significant agreement between Latin American/Caribbean countries and the US is 100,000 Strong in the Americas, the goal of which is to boost the number of American students studying in Latin America and the Caribbean to 100,000 and bring 100,000 students to the United States by 2020.

Brazil’s Science Without Borders programme is now over, but from its beginning to end, it sent a huge number of students abroad to the US, Canada, and UK.

There has also been a project called CAMINOS (scheduled to end this October), an umbrella project designed to leverage existing mobility schemes between European and Latin American countries. CAMINOS was co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union and implemented through a consortium of 28 partners from Europe and Latin America.

Read the article on ICEF Monitor.


  Subscribe to our newsletter   
TagsAcademic MobilityHigher EducationIESALC
Anterior

Colombia no es atractiva para los estudiantes ...

Siguiente

IAU-BBC series / International Association of Universities ...

0
Shares
  • 0
  • +
  • 0
  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

Artículos relacionados

  • Covid19News

    “Higher education in Ibero-America in times of pandemic. Impact and teachers’ responses”

    6 July, 2021
    By Yamel Rincon
  • CRESFrom the CRES 2018 to WHEC 2022Quality and Relevance

    CRES COLLECTION 2018 – Higher Education as part of the education System in Latin America and the Caribbean. Quality and ...

    29 June, 2021
    By Yamel Rincon
  • Futures of Higher EducationNews

    HE should prepare students for life not just livelihood / University World News

    31 May, 2021
    By Yara Bastidas
  • Featured NewsInternationalization and Academic MobilityNews

    UNESCO IESALC reveals that only 38% of mobility from Latin America and the Caribbean is to the same region

    25 September, 2019
    By Yara Bastidas
  • Academic MobilityVirtual Student Mobility

    UNESCO IESALC Virtual Student Mobility team shares expertise and experiences with Hemispheric University Consortium

    23 April, 2021
    By Yara Bastidas
  • Futures of Higher EducationNews

    #HigherEdFutures project enters next phase | Proyecto #FuturosEdSup entra en su próxima fase

    20 May, 2021
    By Yara Bastidas

  • Recognition

    Recognition Process Argentina

  • Unesco

    On the International Day of Education UNESCO calls for increased and better financing of education

  • From the CRES 2018 to WHEC 2022

    Towards #WHEC2022. Webinar 10: Impact of COVID-19 on higher education

New Regional Convention

Register

UNESCO IESALC applies a zero tolerance policy against all forms of harassment

OUR NEWSLETTER

  Subscribe to our newsletter   

FOLLOW US

  •   Facebook
  •   Twitter
  •   Linkedin
  •   Instagram
  •   Youtube
  • © UNESCO IESALC 2021
  • Disclaimer of use
  • Privacy Policy
  • Opportunities
  • Contact us