Who created this monster? Education and globalization: their relation to society

Abstract

This article sets forth some basic notions that make it easier to understand globalization and its relationship to society in the field of higher education. It compares two documents on higher-education policies published during the nineties by the World Bank and UNESCO; these have had a strong influence on the development of public policies worldwide and become ongoing indispensable references. It points out three periods in the twentieth century in which universities reacted to policies and systems that sought to use education as a means of furthering privileges: the Cordoba, Argentina reform of 1918; the May 1968 movement and the UNESCO World Conference on Higher Education of 1998. The author wonders whether in practice we are returning to a system of equivalences between all systems with the European system, rather than a democratic system based on the accreditation of studies and diplomas, in which all parties have equal rights and the diversity of systems is in keeping with the cultural and social diversity of different parts of the world; to a system based on control by a few countries that, in the current phase of world organization, would dominate educational trade.