Immediate Past Secretary General of IAUP (2008-2011)

Heitor Gurgulino de Souza's latest subject for discussion is how Latin America should end its taboos and dogmas in Education, "During the Sixties, Asian countries showed similar educational indexes to ours. Nowadays, they exhibit a vertiginous educational advance. I lived in Japan for ten years when I was the Rector of the United Nations University. There I learned about the strong efforts made by both Japan and Korea to educate all of their population, since the middle of the 1800's and substantial resources were provided for education and training. That explains the high indexes of educational accomplishments that both countries have attained in recent years. And they continue to invest today a high proportion of their respective GDP in education and science.  Their societies have maintained in high regard  their fellow citizens that have chosen to become "teachers", at all levels of the educational process.

  And  their governments have also increased the salaries of teachers in order to attract the best minds to the teaching profession. Agreements were also reached with  private companies, schools and college systems  allowing more resources to be available for educational activities not only locally, but  at the level of the States/Prefectures and at the national level. Very good examples to be followed in most countries of the Latin  American region.

Chile and other countries have advanced a lot, but if they really want to solve their formative problems they have to finish with the dogmas. The dilemma is that to make these changes it is necessary to invest more money but since our countries grow at low rates, the issue becomes complicated. Our delay is evident. We need to make our informative systems wider, to have both suitable programs and infrastructure, access to advanced technology and the application of methodologies that allow to give a better education. We have to develop and use programs that contribute in an effective way to generate knowledge.

This system must be modified due to what represents an unfair subsidy but talking about private and public education is taboo. Latin America must stop with these dogmas. It's a topic we must face. I was recently in China, a communist orientated country, governed by just one party where the students pay for the university. The Chinese Government authorized the creation of private universities which are supported by giving them governmental resources. That is to say, the topic is faced integrally by the society as it happened in Japan and South Korea, countries that clearly show a high standard of development and social justice."