This 2024, the Organization of Ibero-American States for Education, Science and Culture (OEI) celebrates 75 years in which it has gone through all kinds of vicissitudes in a region marked for decades by dictatorships, wars and poverty. And to the celebrations, which will take place in autumn, we now add that the jury of the Princess of Asturias Award for International Cooperation 2024 has awarded the organization the award this Wednesday, which will be collected on its behalf by its secretary general, Mariano Jabonero (San Martín de Valdeiglesias , Madrid; 1953). The OEI faces the post-pandemic with technological challenges, university quality or early access to school.
Ask. What does the award mean for your organization?
Answer. The first involves great gratitude to the jury that has distinguished us with this important award, and secondly, a memory and recognition to all those who have worked in international cooperation over the last 75 years. We are leaders in the region due to history and operational presence in all countries. And I want to give a very special thank you to those who work every day in the offices in Latin America and the General Secretary in Spain and to the governments that trust in the OEI.
Q. Do you think this award will give new impetus to the OEI?
R. It is an encouragement to move forward. The OEI has not stopped growing in these 75 five years and this award confirms that we are getting it right. It is an element that motivates us. And, on the other hand, there is also an issue that I want to involve, and it is a recognition of multilateral relations, in which dialogue, agreement and consensus prevail to achieve the well-being of the people and the strengthening of defense. of human rights and democracy.
Q. The pandemic has taken a greater toll on education in Latin America than in the rest of the world and the role of the OEI, awarded this Wednesday, was key.
R. When the pandemic emerged, Latin America represented 8% of the world’s population and suffered 30% of the infections. The impact has been very strong. It meant that a good part of the children and young people were left out of school. It is estimated that there were about 180 million, of which more or less half had connectivity capacity. A digital, gender, social, financial gap has been generated, in every sense.
There are countries that had invented digital content and exported it to other countries. In Central America there was an alliance… From the point of view of solidarity, it was a time… I was moved by the interaction that there was. El Salvador sharing texts with Nicaragua, Guatemala with Panama, Panama with such… Even Equatorial Guinea broadcast Mexico’s educational television program, which is historic! It was a very federal time. I spoke more than ever with the Administration during the pandemic.
Q. How has the OEI, which dedicates 59% of its budget to education, reacted?
R. We produced hundreds and hundreds of digital content and began to network, with thousands of scholarships so that university professors knew how to work virtually, which they did not know. They were blackboard teachers, directly. After the pandemic, this emergency remote education has been transformed to be a quality virtual and hybrid education. There has been a sharp drop in public investment. Two years before the pandemic, we were the region in the world in which the most investment was made in education, 5.2%. Afterwards, not even 2%.
Q. Did the money go to healthcare?
R. It went to health, to human lives, and I understand it. Also to family income.
Q. However, with the pandemic, many Latin American families have sought refuge in public schools.
R. Because of poverty. There is a population with a low income level that could afford to take their children to a more or less quality private school. And with the pandemic it has returned to the public. It is a fact that is neither positive nor negative, demographic and economic. It would be a good opportunity to invest more in public schools, which are for everyone.
Q. They have decided to focus on early childhood education (0 to three years old).
R. There is very little supply and prices rise. We have an early childhood program with administrations and different ministries, because it includes family, women’s, rural policies… We help with educational resources, training of those who work and supporting the expansion of that network. Since the first time I took over the OIE in 2018, I remembered a phrase from the Nobel Prize winner in Economics James Heckman: the best social investment is in early childhood, because it is the one that produces the greatest return.
Q. What is your Universities 2030 program?
R. A program that tries, first of all, to make transparent what is happening in the region in higher education. Sometimes I resist talking about universities. We did a study and 4,000 came out, which is a very large number, very unequal. The supply has grown a lot because there was a lot of demand. We have become the region in the world with the highest number of enrollees: 32 million. In the year 2030 we will reach 40 million, which is very good news. 70% come from families that never went to university. And an increasing number of women are observed. The big problem in the region is quality.
Q. Those known as garage universities.
R. Or duckling. The in-person university grew by 20% during the pandemic and the virtual one by 80%. We have generated a quality certificate seal with RIACES [Red Iberoamericana para el Aseguramiento de la Calidad en la Educación Superior] for virtual universities to be examined. The UNAM of Mexico, the UBA of Colombia, the UNED of Spain are sure and have launched themselves. They are very good for us, because it is a very healthy element of emulation. The quality of higher education has to be closely associated with mobility.
Q. I’ve been hearing about erasmus Latino at least 10 years.
R. Me too. No progress has been made. We have a mobility of 1.1%, only sub-Saharan Africa has less. It is always expensive, but there can be quality virtual mobility. And why is there no internal mobility? Why go to the United States, Canada or Europe with quality universities? [en la región]. We have launched a doctoral program that is neither easy nor cheap.
Q. Are you concerned about the very serious financial situation of the University of Buenos Aires, with almost 300,000 students and 9% foreigners?
R. Yes, because the financial situation of the region in general is worrying. In the case of Argentina, it has experienced a situation of inflation, currency exchange… and that has a general impact on everything. It is a highly prestigious university, but there is more. In this biennium we want to detect small, high-quality universities. It also happens in Spain.
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