Universities in Latin America support development

One of the main goals of the Latin American University Reform movement of 1918 was to transform the university's relations with society and work together for social and democratic fairness. Even today, universities have to support development by creating new knowledge for promoting social change. Access to higher education needs to increase significantly, to create new knowledge and train people to use it.

The University Reform was initiated by the students of the University of Córdoba, in Argentina, and spread rapidly across the region. The proposal to include a third mission – 'extension' – with the two usual missions of teaching and research, was particularly popular. The goal of the third mission was to use scientific knowledge from universities to help those living in poverty to overcome different forms of deprivation or access and exercise their rights as citizens. The various areas of extension work, undertaken by teachers and students together, included free legal advice, health support at community level, advice on vegetable cultivation in urban areas, and help for school children to improve their comprehension of science.

Ninety years on, the main aims of the University Reform movement are still relevant. Strong relationships with civil society organisations, trade unions, co-operatives and social movements are crucial for improving the impact of universities' extension mission.

Innovation and problem sharing are complex social processes. To understand them, it is important to realise that creating and using new knowledge often takes place in interactive learning spaces. These are relatively stable sets of social relations that provide opportunities to cooperate in problem-solving, build common languages and trust, share learning, and follow up with new undertakings. Universities can help in organising interactive learning spaces devoted to solving social problems.

For universities to undertake this knowledge-related developmental role, they need to renew and broaden the concept of extension. They need to promote an internal and national transformation – a 'Second University Reform'; its scope and ambitions no less than those of the First University Reform.

The University of the Republic, in Uruguay, with the active involvement of students, teachers and graduates, is discussing how a 'Second University Reform, can happen, and ways in which its aims can be achieved. Everyone agrees that access to knowledge has to be democratised radically and lifelong higher education has to be made relevant to work-related skills. Other goals include:

• strengthening internal democracy and participation in decision-making processes
• encouraging research, in particular regarding social inclusion
• strengthening 'university extension' – external collaboration to use knowledge in socially-valuable ways
• linking extension with research and teaching so that it can be part of the problem-based learning for all students, to reinforce their social commitment.

One strategy of the university reform is to participate in several interactive learning spaces alongside government, public and private enterprises, non-governmental organisations, trade unions and other social movements. This is part of the social developmental role of universities which could lead them to collaborations to strengthen national scientific innovation systems as well as help to find solutions for ordinary people. Latin America now has its best chance in its history to promote and use this developmental role.

Rodrigo Arocena and Judith Sutz
University of the Republic, Av 18 de Julio 1824, Montevideo, Uruguay
roar@oce.edu.uy
jsutz@csic.edu.uy

See also

'Knowledge, Innovation and Learning: Systems and Policies in the North and in the South', by Rodrigo Arocena and Judith Sutz, pages 291 to 310, in Systems of Innovation and Development: Evidence from Brazil, Edward Elgar Publishing, edited by José Cassiolato, Helena Lastres and Maria Lucia Maciel, 2003

‘Latin American Universities: From an Original Revolution to an Uncertain Transition’, Higher Education 50 (4), pages 573 to 592, by Rodrigo Arocena and Judith Sutz, 2005

National Systems of Innovation: Towards a Theory of Innovation and Interactive Learning, Pinter Publishers: London, edited by Bengt-Åke Lundvall, 1992

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