Emir Olivares Alonso
Newspaper La Jornada
Tuesday, March 29, 2022, p. 13
After the crisis caused by the covid-19 pandemic, higher education in Latin America and the Caribbean faces new challenges, among which is the improvement of the quality of education and its relevance to provide future professionals with the tools for future.
It is, said specialists on the subject, two elements that must be guaranteed by governments and institutions of this academic level.
During the virtual forum The fruits of higher education: towards the III world conference of that level of Unescoorganized by the National Association of Universities and Institutions of Higher Education (Anuies) and the Kairós organization, the experts agreed that the health crisis due to covid-19 accentuated unequal access to quality training.
Anna Barrera Vivero, a member of the EU-LAC Foundation, indicated that currently young university students are trained in higher systems that are not necessarily prepared to provide them with the solutions to face the uncertainty that the world faces today.
He stated that the pandemic exacerbated a situation that already existed before, such as unequal access to quality higher education. This has involved learning losses and desertion. When (this level) is for many an expectation for social mobility
.
Sandra Regina Goulart Almeida, rector of the Federal University of Minas Gerais in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, stressed that higher education cannot think about tomorrow without analyzing the future of the nations of the region in order to make them fairer, more equitable and, above all, with more possibilities. Hence we have to guarantee quality and inclusive higher education, and not commodified
.
This academic level, he asserted, is the opening for the consolidation of other rights of citizens. Higher education is a powerful instrument of social inclusion and a means of reducing the historical inequalities suffered in our region
.
Francisco Telémaco Talavera Siles, rector of the National Agrarian University of Nicaragua, pointed out that the education of the future must be closely linked to the desired society of the future.
The situation due to covid-19, he affirmed, worsened problems such as extreme poverty, marginalization, racism and xenophobia, to which is added climate change and the worsening of violence. Higher education has a responsibility (to address these crises) because the world has a serious problem of values
.
