The university graduation and success rate is an indicator of social and cultural development (AQU, 2007; 2009 & Gairín, 2010), a clear symptom of evolution and quality of life in modern societies and their populations. Some social problems are clearly anecdotal when they are analysed in the population with post secondary studies: unemployment only represents here a third of the population with university studies as opposed to those that only have primary studies. Currently, access to knowledge has become an unavoidable condition in socialisation, equity and social integration processes (Castells, 2008) and the university is a key institution for this.
There is no doubting the effort made in Latin American countries for the generalization of basic and medium instruction (OEI, 2010). These initiatives aimed at the development of ‘quantitative’ policies (education for the greatest number of people possible) should be complemented with ‘qualitative’ policies involving positive discrimination and support for social collectives that due to their economic, geographic, ethnic or cultural vulnerability have greater difficulties accessing university education. With more or less explicit barriers in the systems for accessing university and without policies to support the least favoured (the poor, handicapped, minorities, people from isolated territories) there will be no social equity, and without that there can be no social integration or economic development.
Personal factors (skills, training), but most of all contextual factors (social, cultural or economic problems) impede access to or permanence at University (Tintó, 2005; NAO, 2007; Gairín et al, 2010). Between 2000 and 2005, the IESALC diagnosed the factors and magnitude of dropout from public and private universities in Latin America. Its results show that, apart from Cuba, only 43% of the people that enter higher education graduate in the period established to do so. Not acting by means of policies and actions aimed at academic entrance and success for certain minorities and underprivileged groups does no more than widen the already existing gap in the Latin American community.
In this respect, there is a need to strengthen the processes for retention and tutorship, and to promote research and the exchange of experiences (Gairín et al, 2009) aimed at increasing the presence, permanence and certification of groups suffering from social or cultural deficits. Thus the actions that have already been initiated in Chilean, Bolivian and Central American universities shall be continued.
The proposed project will focus on the poorest and most excluded populations, favouring their social inclusion, which should result in a stimulus for more equal economic and social development in the region. Such development seeks to improve the quality and pertinence of entrance in Higher Education for the most vulnerable groups, reforming and modernizing institutions from the perspectives of inclusion, establishing a networked structure between bodies, institutions and other relevant agents in the development of Higher Education between Latin America and the European Unión.
In the framework described in the previous section, the general objective of this project is to improve the levels of inclusion and permanence of underprivileged or vulnerable collectives at Latin American universities. This proposal is specified in the form of three objectives:
- To promote the entrance and permanence of underprivileged collectives in Institutions of Higher Education (IHE);
- To contribute to the development of inclusion in IHE;
- To promote international networks focussed on university inclusion.
The project will be developed in three phases that coincide with each of the proposed objectives. The idea is to specify and develop a methodology that favours the successful incorporation and permanence of underprivileged collectives through organisational development actions and plans. For this, there is a support and mutual assistance network to guide the adoption of the most appropriate measures, their dissemination and their posterior institutionalization; therefore, these are actions aimed at the access and permanence of the most underprivileged collectives and also at the institutions that they attend (organisational learning).
Participating in the project, along with the UAB, are the following universities: ESC Rennes School of Business (France), Università di Bergamo (Italy), Universidad Católica de Argentina (Argentina), Universidad Católica de Bolivia (Bolivia), Universidad de Talca (Chile), Universidad de Cienfuegos “Carlos Rafael Rodríguez” (Cuba), Universidad Católica de Paraguay (Paraguay), Universidad Católica del Perú (Peru), Universidad ORT Uruguay (Uruguay), Universidad de los Andes (Venezuela), Universidad Autónoma de Tabasco (Mexico) and the Universidad Especializada de las Américas (Panama).