THE ACCESS TO HIGHER EDUCATION OF 80% OF YOUTH IN THE YEAR 2000

This article explores some of the probable consequences of the objective, elaborated throughout the French political spectrum, in favour of expanding French higher education enrollments such that by the year 2000, 80 percent of each age cohort will hold the baccalauriat and 90 percent of the latter will enroll in higher education. So far, the consequences of this objective have not been faced, particularly the tremendous changes required so as to make higher education in France universal. Certainly they will bring an end to the traditional elite nature of the French university with its emphasis on research and on the imparting of theoretical knowledge. Ineluctably, the emphasis will have to shift to practical courses and to career preparation. The author therefore suggests that the move to universality might best be accomplished by the development of numerous short‐term and vocationally oriented courses to be offered in distinct institutions to provide training to the bulk of the new entrants who will, for the most part, have completed high school in technical baccalaur éat sections. A traditionally oriented core within the university system will continue to offer long‐‐cycle courses admitting only the cream of the traditional general education baccalauriat holders and the best graduates of the new short‐cycle institutions. All the enrollees in the latter institutions should be encouraged to avoid over‐specialization so as to guarantee their professional flexibility with respect to future employment.

     

Higher Education in Latin America

This article presents an analysis of, and proposals for, international co-operation in higher education. It focuses on Latin American higher education, its current situation, and the expected transformation of the goals of higher education in the context of international co-operation. Education in the Twenty-First Century must be part of the world economic order. As such, it must attend to human necessities. One of the most important goals of the Twenty-First Century should be the building of a new kind of solidarity among human beings, one in which higher education systems will play an important role. The author describes the challenges that globalization poses to Latin American higher education.     

Comparative Research in Education: a mode of governance or a historical journey?

This text is not a research paper, nor an epistemological reflection about the field of comparative education. It is an essay in the literal meaning of the word—‘an attempt, trial, that needs to be put to test in order to understand if it is able to fulfil the expectations’—in which we introduce an interpretation of the current condition of the field of comparative education. In the introduction to this essay we discuss the current phenomenon of a regained popularity of comparative educational research. We believe that this situation has both positive and negative consequences: it can contribute to the renewal of the field or it may be no more than a brief fashion. Our reflections focus on the uses of comparative research in education, not on any precise research question. Even so, only for illustrative purposes, we present some examples related to the European Union. We then go on to discuss current comparative practices, arguing that comparative educational studies are used as a political tool creating educational policy, rather than a research method or an intellectual inquiry. In the two main sections of this text we define two extreme positions: comparison as a mode of governance and comparison as a historical journey. We do recognise that between these two extremes there is room enough to imagine different positions and dispositions. But our intention is to separate very different traditions of the comparative field analytically. Throughout the article we build a case in favour of a comparative-historical approach. Nevertheless, we argue that the reconciliation between ‘history’ and ‘comparison’ will only be possible if we adopt new conceptions of space and time, and of space-time relationship. This is a condition required for the understanding of comparative research in education as a historical journey.