The second Congress of the Americas here this week was dominated by a strong Canadian presence and lively debates over what internationalization means to Latin America and the early trials of a new Brazilian international scholarship program.
Almost 600 delegates attended the three days of debate in the booming South American nation. Brazil has become an increasingly important player politically and economically over the last decade. Last year the Brazilian government and industry officials sought to extend that to education when they announced they would send a combined 101,000 students abroad on scholarships through a project known as Science Without Borders.
“Brazil has become the world’s sixth-biggest economy through marked priorities in the expansion of public higher education, in the growth of scientific and technological research, in the internationalization of our universities,” Sidney Mello, vice rector of the Federal Fluminense University, said at one of opening debates.
The conference boasted delegates from across the Western Hemisphere, with Mexico and Canada sending some of the largest groups.
Thirty Canadian university presidents, two cabinet ministers, and the country’s governor general used the conference as a starting point on a weeklong tour to make connections with Brazilian universities.
Canada would like to increase the number of Brazilians studying there from its present 500 to 12,000, said Paul Davidson, the president of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada.
“We recognize that we need to engage this economic power,” Mr. Davidson said. “Canadian university presidents said loudly and clearly, This is a priority.”
Only about 7 percent of students at Canada’s higher-education institutes are foreign, Davidson said.
The Canadian delegation announced 35 new agreements with 18 Brazilian institutions on Thursday, and unveiled 13 new scholarship and student-mobility programs for Brazilian and Canadian students.
The Canadian visit is just the latest confirming international, and particularly North American, interest in Brazil. Last week, representatives from 18 U.S. universities spent a week in Brazil meeting potential partners and higher-education officials in four cities.
Internationalization Worries
Internationalization was a recurrent theme at the conference, but attendees held differing opinions on what it means to Latin America.
Professors and administrators from several Latin American countries said they were dismayed at the increasingly commercial focus of internationalization. Many said they felt interest in high-quality education was taking second place to more monetary concerns, particularly those based around ranking systems they say leave them at a disadvantage.
“We don’t want all universities to be all the same—we don’t want to be like them,” Sonia Laus, who researches the internationalization of higher education at the State University of Santa Catarina, said to loud applause during the first plenary debate on internationalization and mobility.
“What we want are good partnerships. We want our students to go to the best universities, but those are not necessarily the ones at the top of the rankings. For us, rankings aren’t important. Forming partnerships with universities that have something in common with us is what matters.”
Mobility was also discussed, with some from the region worrying that student exchange could mean the departure of their best and brightest to North America and Europe.
Fernando Leon, rector of the Sistema CETYS University in northern Mexico, said that as the populations of developed countries are shrinking, the population in developing countries continues to grow.
That means the rich nations will look to the poorer ones for labor.
And that could spell trouble if developing nations are bled of their top talent.
Other speakers sought to dispel that by noting that today, unlike 50 years ago, most students who come to the United States to study end up returning to their homeland. And Gudrun Paulsdottir, president of the European Association for International Education, pointed out there is no way to stop travel and mobility in today’s shrinking and interconnected world.
“I don’t think we should worry about where people are educated,” Ms. Paulsdottir said. “People will find a way home. And when they study, they will build knowledge and build networks.”
Science Without Borders
Another frequent topic of conversation in both the scheduled debates and informal conversations was the Science Without Borders program.
Most delegates—from Brazil and elsewhere—lauded the program’s aims, but some local administrators were critical of the execution. Several speakers called it “elitist,” saying most of those benefiting come from the higher-ranked and tuition-free public universities.
Others said the federal government and organizers such as Brazil’s National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (Cnpq) are not giving universities the support or orientation they need to properly fulfill its goals.
“We ask Cnpq for information and they don’t respond,” said Adriana Jardim de Almeida, a professor at North Fluminense State University who is a campus administrator for Science Without Borders. “The students end up getting the information they need from Facebook.”
The federal government’s lack of commitment was highlighted in another way at the conference. Both Aloizio Mercadante, Brazil’s education minister, and Jorge Guimarães, head of the Agency for Support and Evaluation of Graduate Education, failed to show up as scheduled, sending deputies instead.
Other Brazilians criticized the organization of a meeting that cost at least $450 to attend but failed to provide Wi-Fi or simultaneous translation at all of the debates.
“I feel very disappointed,” said Francis Mary Guimaraes Nogueira, a professor from the southern state of Paraná. “You can’t presume that everyone speaks Spanish or English. It’s an expensive event. The coordinators should have been more concerned about this.”
The conference is jointly organized by the Inter-American Organization for Higher Education, the Board of Brazilian University Rectors, the Association of Brazilian Higher Education Institutions’ Offices for International Relations, Federal Fluminense University in Brazil, and the Mexican Association for International Education, in partnership with the Canadian Bureau for International Education and the Consortium for North American Higher Education Collaboration.
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