Acceso, permanencia y éxito académico de colectivos vulnerables en la Educación Superior

Promoting and encouraging equity in education is a social and university challenge. Unfortunately, Higher Education (HE) continues to be restricted to disadvantaged social groups and we cannot say that it fulfils its social function if it does not provide all citizens with a real opportunity to participate in it. We can speak of equitable HE systems when they provide opportunities for access, permanence and graduation regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, place of residence, disability, socioeconomic background or other factors that may cause educational disadvantages. From this point of view, both inclusion and diversity constitute both goals and challenges for HE, its institutions and actors. The challenge becomes more evident in today’s knowledge society, which demands a system that encourages the development and strengthening of competencies, knowledge and skills that enable all students and graduates, as citizens, to consolidate a critical and transformative participation in society and the context in which they find themselves. Overcoming this requires thinking about all people and abandoning the interested barriers that are usually used to homogenize students and make the management of the training process easier. The ACCEDES Project (DCI-ALA/2011/232), focused on “The access and academic success of vulnerable groups in risk environments in Latin America” addresses the aforementioned problem. Coordinated by the Organizational Development Team of the Autonomous University of Barcelona, it has directly involved 24 universities from 19 countries, to which many others have been added with significant involvement. This contribution aims to be a synthesis of the Project and its contributions, trying to give a general overview of what has been done and achieved, while also providing information on the mechanisms that allow access to the knowledge developed. It is not only about disseminating what has been done but also about encouraging and giving tools to university managers and administrators to improve their intervention processes.