March 8, 2002

TO MEET RISING STUDENT POPULATION, LATIN AMERICA STRIVES TO IMPROVE QUALITY OF HIGHER EDUCATION, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY Academics and public officials discuss need for increasing higher education opportunities, innovation systems and evaluation

FORTALEZA, Brazil – Latin America’s university population will undergo a massive expansion in the next decades as new waves of students complete secondary school and enroll in higher education, according to specialists who participated today in a seminar organized by the Inter-American Development Bank.

The region already registered an explosive increase in its university population and among students in technical institutes and other higher education institutions at the end of the last century. In three decades the number of students enrolled increased six times to 9.5 million in 2000 ,compared with 1.6 million in 1970.

While the increase in demand for higher education triggered a proliferation of courses and programs and educational institutions, both public and private, the rate of expansion of enrollment and the expectations of Latin American youth pose a daunting challenge to the region.

To analyze some of the principal challenges to Latin America in this area, the Education Unit of the IDB organized a seminar on Higher Education, Science and Technology in Latin America and the Caribbean: Responding to Expansion and Diversification - an event held in conjunction with the Annual Meeting of the Board of Governors of the Bank.

The session - which brought together researchers, academics and public officials - was inaugurated by Brazil’s Education Minister Paulo Renato Souza and the manager of the IDB’s Sustainable Development Department, Carlos M. Jarque. The conference was closed by Brazil’s Secretary of Higher Education, Francisco César de Sá Barreto, and by IDB President Enrique V. Iglesias.

Souza noted that enrollment in Brazilian universities has grown 62 percent in the past seven years, raising concerns about improving the quality of higher education while dealing with this expansion. One policy has been for the government to encourage professors to obtain masters degrees and doctorates, he said.

“Society needs to establish quality standards for higher education. Society must establish evaluation systems for higher education not only for the process, but for the results,” Souza said.

The minister also noted the need to strengthen ties between universities and other institutions of higher education with the productive sector, to enable countries to respond to the needs of a world in constant change.

Jarque observed that no nation has achieved development without building a significant capacity to adopt technologies to improve its productive processes. “Nevertheless, countries of our region continue to dedicate, in the best of cases, less than a quarter, as a portion of their gross domestic product, of the resources developed countries invest in research and development,” he said.

Panelists based their presentations on concrete experiences, such as opportunities for innovation in higher education, distance education, the integration of ethnic and cultural minorities into higher education, systems of evaluation and accreditation of institutions, and programs that coordinate higher education among government, universities and the private sector to support scientific and technological innovation.

In different session participants examined lessons learned from the supervision of different models of educational institutions in the region, the achievements of distance education in Spain and the experience of the University of the Autonomous Regions of the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua - an institution created by and for indigenous communities of the region.
Other speakers analyzed the evaluation systems of higher education in Brazil, El Salvador and the Caribbean, as well as evaluation and accreditation of higher education through the Internet. A final panel featured the presentation of successful innovations that originated in Latin American institutions of higher learning, the program for research agendas in Venezuela and the new policy of innovation in Brazil.

At the closing, Iglesias said the IDB would continue to support the region’s universities, higher education institutions and science and technology research centers, which are key to investing in Latin America’s and the Caribbean’s human capital.

“The IDB’s job is not to invest in just one but in all of the variations of higher education in each of the countries, to ensure that these institutions carry out their mandates with excellence,” he said. “As long as we succeed in doing so, we will be contributing towards improving both equity and the economic impact of higher education and scientific research.”

IDB support for higher education

Since its creation in 1959 the IDB has supported the development of higher education in Latin America and the Caribbean. The Bank provided financing for a great number of buildings and laboratories of the large public universities of the region. The IDB was also a pioneer in the support of scientific innovation and technology in its borrowing member countries. Only a handful of institutions in that sector in the region have not benefited from IDB financing.

While in recent years the Bank has channeled most of its support to basic and secondary education, its financial assistance to universities and research never disappeared. Guided by strategy documents, the IDB has supported efforts in the region to improve the quality and equity of higher education systems and their scientific and technological capacity.

On Thursday the IDB signed a letter of intent with Brazil to prepare a program to promote diversity among its university student population. This initiative, which could receive IDB financing of up to $5 million, will promote greater access to higher education for persons of African and indigenous descent.