VIRTUAL EVENT: The challenges and obstacles faced by public universities in Latin America

In the last quarter of the twentieth century, student movements in Latin America established a Latin American public university tradition labelled the ‘State Building University’. This was a development of the Humboldtian ideals of modernisation and academic autonomy.

The State Building University came under strong pressure to adopt the US elite research university model. This triggered a long phase of financial and identity crises in Latin American public universities. Their problems have included contradictory development projects and policies, financial uncertainty, profound inequalities, high levels of privatisation and enrolment lags.

Latin American higher education (HE) enrolment varies by country. Overall, the region is highly privatised, stratified, and plagued by profound inequalities. Student struggles for access and tuition free HE have been a constant.

More recently national systems and institutions (Argentina, Chile, Honduras and Mexico among others) have been sites of strong women mobilisation for gender equality and against gender violence.

These pre-existing tensions and the ongoing social conflicts endemic to higher education have now been compounded by the challenges posed by COVID-19.

This talk will address the situation of Latin American public universities in the light of historical developments, contemporary difficulties and contests, as well as new troubles and opportunities.

Speaker

• Imanol Ordorika, National Autonomous University of Mexico

Links

• Centre for Global Higher Education
• Department of Education, Practice and Society

Image: Joe Hernandez via Unsplash