Argentina will ratify the free higher education model by considering it as a human right and therefore as a social good at the summit of universities to be organized by UNESCO in May, in Barcelona, within the framework of the debate generated from the call to banking entities to the event.
The secretary of University Policies, Oscar Alpa, told Radio Cooperativa that Argentina’s position will be the same as throughout Ibero-America and that, as a counterpart, the European countries and the United States will propose “higher education as a tradable good.”
over the summit
The Universities summit will be the first after the pandemic and was convened by UNESCO for May 18 in the Spanish city of Barcelona.
The meeting will be held with the controversial call of the World Bank and Santander Universities to discuss the future of higher education in the world, without officially convening other actors such as non-governmental organizations linked to education or representatives of university unions
“In the next one there will be two models in conflict, the one proposed by European countries and the United States, which is higher education as a tradable good and a commercial good that gives value to a professional and therefore has to be charged,” he said. Alpa.
“In the next one there will be two competing models, the one proposed by European countries and the United States, which is higher education as a tradable good and a commercial good that gives value to a professional and therefore has to be charged”Oscar Alpa
The other model, which is the one that Argentina will ratify together with all of Latin America, is to consider higher education “as a human right of people and therefore a social good, not tradable. In Latin America there is a very different reality from Europe or United States,” the secretary said.
“A master’s or postgraduate degree in Europe costs 100,000 euros, that in Latin America and this has to be financed by a bank. In Argentina this would be something unthinkable”Alpa said, adding that “there will be two models, each one thinks he is right.”
“In a recent meeting in Santo Domingo, we established the position of Argentina and Latin America, which is the same as that agreed at the 2018 Regional Conference on Higher Education held in Córdoba,” said the official.
Alpa pointed out that it is planned to hold a meeting of all Argentine universities together with the University of Córdoba, on June 30 and July 1 to ratify this position. In this way, Europe will have its university model and we will have ours.”
