Keywords

Introduction

The fundamental purpose of this chapter is to identify areas of social tension arising from the collision between the process of globalization of higher education and the specificities of national education systems, via three scenarios: two in Latin American (Brazil and Chile) and one in Eurasian Russia.

The questions considered are: What are the tensions that the globalization of education introduces into national education systems? How is this tension, associated with the commercialization of education, neo-management, and the standardization of educational systems, expressed? Is an alternative, cooperative globalization based on solidarity possible, a counter-hegemonic university for public good, as Boaventura de Sousa Santos points out (2007)? Finally, in that context, what role does ICT play in this phenomenon, where globalization stresses education systems?

To begin such an analysis, it is impossible to consider the formation of relations between national higher education systems and global higher education without a methodological understanding of the processes of the relationship between globalization and the knowledge society, globalization and neo-liberal policies in the sphere of education, and academic capitalism and the knowledge society.

Globalization and Neo-Liberal Politics in Education

Neo-liberal policy in the field of culture (which also includes education) has led to not only commercialization, i.e., “transformation of cultural goods from the status of relatively free to not free,” but also to the displacement of the recipients of these goods “from an independent person to a consumer with neutral cultural affiliation” (Bikbov 2014). According to Bikbov, the basic principles of neo-liberal policy are:

  • An arrangement of conditions to accumulate capital and political power in economically elite circles.

  • A denial of the concept of nation, and, consequently, a promotion of an idea that governmental interference in the economy is dangerous (in this case in the form of a minimization of governmental interference in education).

  • Assistance in the independent and stable functioning of the whole education system including all its levels and elements (schools, institutes, universities, etc.).

This neo-liberal policy brings a total marginal character to all educational systems when marginality serves as the constitutional principle of the organization of an educational space. Marginality of executors means that those who are directly involved in the educational process should recruit a large number of practitioners to the teaching process (in accordance with the requirements of the Bologna Process), i.e., persons who have no work experience at the university. Marginality of the technologies used by executives means they borrow technologies that previously have not been typical for certain disciplines and are not necessarily related to other fields of science. Marginality of developing fields is the prevalence of interdisciplinary spaces in educational programs and practices. The principle of marginality is neither accidental nor spontaneous, and is the result of the construction of the knowledge development model. The classical model, which was fundamental until the 1920s–1930s, was built on the principle of independence of each field of science. Modernist models originated at the beginning of the twentieth century and had been widely developed up to the beginning of the twenty-first century are considered as an interdisciplinary approach for explanations of phenomenon by another science languages. It represented a view from the outside. The current model uses an interdisciplinary approach as an opportunity to build new fields of scientific knowledge. This is the stage of mixed knowledge where traditional fundamental knowledge of the classical model is transferred to the rank of applied science: a new fundamental knowledge is formed for every newly formed independent interdisciplinary direction (Sharonova et al. 2015, p. 642).

According to Gary Rhoades and Sheila Slaughter (2004), this academic capitalism is a regime, which entails the participation of educational institutions in the formation of market-oriented behavior. Moreover, this type of behavior is transmitted not only to the students but is primarily extended to educational organizations. Reduced state funding for education and serious loss of support resulted in the self-sufficiency of educational institutions not only in Russia but also abroad. Such a transition led to major changes in academic practice, with issues of income holding greater importance than the process of gaining broad and deep knowledge. In addition, there was a substitution of the concept of “access to education,” with the concept of “accessibility to education,” where expanded access to education among students facing economic, social, and cultural barriers shifted to an affordable and convenient way to obtain education for people working in business or people able to pay for educational services. However, Rhoades and Slaughter noted that a revenue growth in educational institutions does not represent a revenue growth in entrepreneurship, business, and society as a whole.

Higher Education in Russia

The Specificity of the National System of Higher Education in Russia

Modern higher education in Russia is going through a long transformation period, initially called reforming (1990s), but over time acquiring the label of modernization (2000s). The main task of this transformation was the transition to the Bologna Model. However, neither the goal of such a transition, nor the benefits Russian education and society might actually get from this transformation have been explained to Russian society.

Russian scientists in their studies pay great attention to the problems of globalization and the impact of globalization processes on Russian higher education. Sociologists in their empirical studies mainly focus on the problems linked to higher education system actors’ perceptions of the changes occurring in higher education, as a result of prolonged modernization. For our research, we turn our attention to the work of L. P. Kostikova (2008)—work that is devoted to the methodological interpretation of the dialogueness of cultures. “Dialogueness is a special quality of culture, striving for wholeness. This quality ensures the mechanism of self-preservation and self-development of the culture. It helps to avoid its stagnation, petrification, and ritualization. Dialogueness allows one to accept other people’s arguments and experience, as well as it always looks for balance and compromise” (Kostikova 2008, p. 6). In this context, Kostikova sees the globalization of the higher education system as an equal dialogue for national education systems. O. G. Petrovich (2009) tries to find the methodological roots of understanding the phenomenon of globalization through the revelation of the concept of “education globalization,” on a par with which, the scientific community uses synonyms—internationalization, integration, informatization, and westernization. He comes to the conclusion that “under the conditions of globalization, none of these processes can be regarded as the main one, since they all need to develop more or less organically. Of course, for each country, there are unique preferences among these processes, though they are not always implemented. For Russia, as well as for the majority of other non-Western countries, integration development is more preferable, since it preserves the national component of education” (Petrovich 2009, p. 34).

Analyzing the impact of Russia’s specific steps to enter the global community considering the example of accession to the WTO, Y. N. Polokhalo and Y. V. Kosov (2007) note that, on the one hand, “the state of the education system and the potential opportunities for its further development are directly related to the issues of ensuring the national security of the Russian state …. It is quite obvious that the economic and military security of the state are impossible without qualified personnel, since the technological security is unthinkable without scientific developments” (Polokhalo and Kosov 2007, p. 113). On the other hand, “it was quite difficult for the Russian education system to survive the economic and political reforms taking place in the country in the last decades of the 20th century. It showed high survival in extreme socio-economic conditions. However, the significant, and perhaps the major part of the resources, has been expended during the specified period … It was in the mid-1990s, when Russian higher education faced the problem of intellectual migration” (Polokhalo and Kosov 2007, p. 113). In the opinion of these scientists, in terms of the management environment, even at the state level, “there still reigns the point of view that education will become a priority only after Russia’s achievement of economic prosperity,” although, the experience of Southeast Asian countries shows that on the contrary, the concentration of political and economic effort in terms of a higher education system ensures a country’s access to the world market. They also express concern about the tendency to put on the back burner the formation of the spiritual and scientific potential of society, the preservation of cultural traditions, and the development of science, regardless of its practical applications—the desire to provide the labor market with human capital at the expense of obtaining fundamental theoretical knowledge.

The Reaction of Russian Society to the Globalization of Russian Higher Education

During the past 5 years, Russia has been actively eating into the global university ranking system. To increase ratings given to Russian universities, the state-driven Project 5-100 was developed and implemented. The goal of Project 5-100 being to maximize the competitive position of the leading Russian universities on the global market of education and research programs. The project began in 2013. Fifteen universities were included as part of it. In 2015, six further universities were added. The main task of this project being to help at least 5 Russian universities find a place among the 100 best universities in the world, according to the 3 authoritative world ratings: Quacquarelli Symonds, Times Higher Education, and Academic Ranking of World Universities.

To evaluate the reaction of the Russian academic society to the process of globalization of Russian higher education within the framework of Project 5-100, a content analysis of speeches provided by experts in mass media and social media was made for the period 2015–2018. Expert opinion is divided into two groups. Official representatives of university management structures are more inclined to evaluate Project 5-100 positively.

The Deputy First Vice-rector of Tomsk Polytechnic University, Andrei Lider believes that the project has allowed the achievement of a new level of strategic planning of university activities, focusing on attaining specific results and indicators over certain time periods. Orientation toward the best global examples of scientific and education activity, new opportunities for students and university staff to study and train in world-leading scientific and education centers, and the possibility of inviting leading foreign and Russian-speaking scientists to Tomsk Polytechnic University for joint programs all allow movement away from “provincialism.” This particular university became attractive to young talent from all over the region of Siberia and nearby foreign countries, recently weakening the centripetal tendencies of Russian higher education (Project 5-100 2017).

Grigory Yudin, senior researcher at the Laboratory of Economic and Sociological Research at the Higher School of Economics (HSE) is confident that much has been done in the framework of this program in order to increase researchers’ publication activities in a number of disciplines. Project 5-100 allocates funds according to indicators on the road map of the project: all universities were divided into three groups accordingly. The financing of universities depends on their place in a particular group. As the Deputy Prime Minister Olga Golodets said, for the first group financing was about 780 million rubles per year, for the second group, 480 million rubles, and for the third group, 100 million rubles. In total, she said the project planned to spend 10 billion rubles annually. Perhaps the positive evaluation of the project might be explained by this financial dependence.

However, the Nobel laureate, the academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Zhores Alferov believes that “we should judge not by ratings, not by formal things, but by real achievements that change our economy and the education system” (Alferov 2016).

The journalist Alexei Polovnikov agrees: “The project ‘5-100’ makes nothing to the development of the education system of Russia, including higher education. It does not determine the level of development of the education system. The level of development of the education system is determined, first of all, by the approved programs, by the level of teaching personnel, by the competent and qualified alumni being in demand in real production and in real sectors of the economy. Not by the inflated (false) ratings” (Polovnikov 2017).

In the opinion of Yuri Smyslov, Deputy Director of the Center for Economic Development and Certification: “Joining the international universities ratings system is not an ultimate goal, but an intermediate goal. If you ask any employer, you will get a completely different rating with other evaluation criteria than an international rating system has. The employer does not care how many scientific publications a year university professors have. Companies need qualified and bright-minded alumni with necessary knowledge and skills, rather than diplomas of prestigious universities. In a word, it would be good for the Ministry of Education to take care of the competitiveness of universities in the domestic economy, and then to forge into international ones” (Smyslov 2016).

Ambiguity in the evaluation of the project by government representatives manifested itself most clearly after the report of the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation in January 2016. The audit of the Chamber of Accounts showed that, despite substantial federal support (more than 30 billion rubles in total), none of the universities, being financed in 2013–2015, was able to get a placing in the top 100 world leading universities. In the opinion of the Accounting Chamber, universities included in the project spent almost 60% of received funds on salaries. The Accounting Chamber emphasized, “At the same time, salaries for foreign scientists are several times higher than for Russian scientists. For example, in 2014 in Tomsk Polytechnic University foreign scientists received 380.4 thousand rubles a month, and Russian—only 98.8 thousand rubles” (TV2 2016).

In addition to this, Project 5-100 caused social tension among professors and teachers. So, in January 2015 Tyumen State University teachers put together a petition expressing their concerns:

  1. 1.

    The existence of two types of higher education programs—“elite” and “ordinary”—leads to discrimination in the education process.

  2. 2.

    Labor relations at the university in addition to the Labor Code of the Russian Federation will be further regulated by a system of so-called “effective contracts,” which demonstrates the ultimatum nature of scientific publications. The most valuable researchers are those who are published in foreign journals, indexed by the international rating network systems, such as Web of Science and Scopus.

  3. 3.

    Graduates of Tyumen State University will not be allowed to work as university personnel according to the principles of Project 5-100. The latter breaks the Russian academic tradition of the most influential scientific schools.

  4. 4.

    Reformation of the university management system, based on a system of open international competition, makes it possible for a foreigner to be nominated for the rector of Tyumen State University. This reform contradicts basic principles and thereby cannot guarantee the country’s national security.

Moreover, the need to teach most university courses in English is an issue that lacks clarity for many scientists and university professors. A transition to English may lead to the loss of Russian mentality among students and contradicts the National Security Strategy of the Russian Federation, which states that there is great need to “increase the attractiveness of learning the Russian language throughout the world” (Torez 2016).

The problem of state security was raised by Olga Chetverikova, teacher at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (University): “Why does Project ‘5-100’ encourage the publication of graduate scientific papers in English?” Many leading universities—mainly technical ones, including personnel from the defense industry of Russia—invite foreign teachers and foreign students for joint programs, thus moving toward an international standard, thereby integrating into the global market of education. Olga Chetverikova states that by 2020, “at least 10% of the university teachers and 15% of the students included in these joint programs will be citizens of foreign states” (Chetverikova 2016).

Universities abroad are more experienced in taking part in the global rating systems that started in 2002. This experience allowed Western researchers to identify certain trends that influenced global ratings for national higher education systems (Hazelkorn 2014; Kehm 2014; Rauhvargers 2014; Marginson 2014; Münch and Schäfer 2014; Locke 2014; Erkkila 2013):

  1. 1.

    The pursuit of reputation and world rating status changes the political and social environment of higher education both at global and national levels.

  2. 2.

    The ratings carry out the transformation of “quality to quantity” and promote marketing competition between higher education institutions (HEIs).

  3. 3.

    Problems of vertical higher education stratification compel the search for horizontal variants of stratification.

  4. 4.

    Universities use all possibilities to be succeed in gaining global rankings. This may involve using deceptive tricks or intrigues.

In short, it is possible to argue that in Russia the search for classification at the international level has affected the functioning and structure of universities. In this sense, globalized education has resulted in an invitation to foreign teachers, with the development of skills being based on the demands of the market. Thus, Russian universities seem to have denied themselves of local characteristics with little resistance from within.

Higher Education in Chile

The research in this chapter is focused on higher education and its main objective is to identify the areas of social tension that arise from the collision between the process of globalization of higher education and the specificities of national education systems.

To approach the Chilean case, we follow a trajectory that begins with the study of universities, the institutions that represent higher education. Inspired by the classic work of Derrida, The University Without Condition, we consider the locus where the zone of social tension occurs. Next, we consider the phenomenon of globalization and its link with neo-liberal policies applied to education. Analysis is focused on the competence model as an expression of the technical–instrumental rationality in education, considering two of its fundamental axes: standardization and measurement, instituted as a regime of truth (Foucault 1975). Finally, focus falls upon an analysis of higher education in Chile.

University Without Condition

It is argued that the interaction between global and local systems generates social tension in higher education. The scenario of higher education is clouded by the vortex that neo-liberal order imposes on social life; therefore, it seems appropriate to observe its permanence and transformation.

Derrida (2001) points out that universities must be without condition—this means an unwavering commitment to search for truth from an unconditional freedom that is a critical resistance to the powers of dogmatic and unjust appropriation. Principle that establishes the limits of what is professed in the university: the teaching of knowledge, knowledge without condition that expresses the faith in the university and in the Humanities. In line with these reflections, Boaventura de Sousa Santos (1998) presents his idea of universities and the university of ideas. Universities, he points out, face a difficult situation given the requirements of society and the state; from the multiplicity of its functions arise a series of contradictions that generate three major crises: of hegemony, of legitimacy, and of institutionalism. The first refers to contradictions that exist in the traditional functions of universities, e.g., among the recipients and the type of knowledge to which their pursuits must be focused—on hard work or on the elites? The second refers to the contradiction between specialized and standardized knowledge and the sociopolitical demands of democratization and equal opportunities; and, the third, to the contradiction between the struggle for autonomy in the definition of values and institutional objectives and subjection to the criteria of efficiency and productivity, of origin and business nature (Santos 1998). The latter is the crisis that monopolized reformist pursuits at the beginning of the twenty-first century, characterized by two main processes: the reduction of state investment in public universities and the commercial globalization of universities. With regard to this neo-liberal globalization, which is based on the systematic destruction of national projects, an alternative, solidary and cooperative, anti-hegemonic globalization, based on universities as a public good is proposed, as a political project involving social forces, the university itself, the national state in an option for the globalization of the university and the individual or collectively organized citizens, social groups, unions, among others, and the national capital. All this, within the conviction that the state must encourage public universities and not be concerned with promoting private universities (Santos 2007).

Hegemonic Globalization and Alternative Globalization

Contradictions, crises, and tensions constitute devices to unveil neo-liberal globalization and think about the utopia of alternative globalization that inspires Santos (idem.). They also help with the task of identifying areas of social tension arising from the collision between the process of globalization of higher education and the specificities of national education systems—which represents the purpose of this research.

In his work Imagined Globalization, García Canclini (1999) proposed to describe the cultural changes of globalization, one such change being the opposition between global and local. His intent was to explore the alternatives to managing change. Considering the error in the term globalization, the author addresses the paradoxes that his presence arouses, that oscillate between a technological optimism and a cultural pessimism—mercantile expansion, relocation, loss of prestige and power of the classic political–social characters. In the second half of the twentieth century, economic, financial, communication, and migratory processes accentuated the interdependence between vast sectors of societies, generating new flows or structures of supranational interconnection. These are processes of homogenization and, at the same time, fragmentation of the world, that reorder differences and inequalities without suppressing them.

In this fashion, at the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century, the development of a neo-liberal globalization process accentuated the social tensions linked to our research. These fundamental keys hold:

  1. 1.

    Only a mechanism of prices operating in free markets, allows the achievement of an optimal use of the means of production, leading to the satisfaction of human desires.

  2. 2.

    The state is responsible for determining the legal regime that serves as a framework for this.

  3. 3.

    Other social goals can be replaced by the economic objectives already stated.

  4. 4.

    The state can and should allocate funds for the collective financing of national defense, education, scientific research, and certain social services. (Baudin 1953, in Guerrero 2009)

The consequence of such globalization is privatization and a reduction of state activity. Note that the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have developed a privatizing crusade, e.g., through educational policies (Guerrero 2009).

Neo-liberal consumer societies promote a process of social disintegration, depoliticizing the loss of projects for which they fight—utopia as a leitmotif. One of its effects is individuation: neo-liberal citizens retreating to their own private space. This expresses another of the paradoxes of globalization: the proposal of global integration as part of totality and, in turn, the social disintegration of old and new segments (Cádiz 2003).

Architecture of the Competences Model: A Neo-Liberal Logic

Some of the manifestations of this social order are incorporated into university discourses and practices, in a process of neo-liberalization. In this context, the competence model, and its technical–instrumental rationality are studied. The study focuses on curricular policy, however, its understanding requires that we at least outline aspects of university management policy.

How is neo-liberal logic articulated with the logic of the competency model? In the context of globalization, the competency model impacts higher education from the core of an educational institution, i.e., the curriculum. The logic of the competency model is based on a process of disciplining knowledge, within the normalizing function of which it is possible to discover a progressive incorporation of neo-liberal discourses and practices. The following outline of the competence model, focusing analysis on the processes of standardization and measurement, allows us to observe how this process of normalization configures a triad of disciplinary orders in university knowledge: a logical–analytical order that configures a worldview; a moral order that normalizes and imposes a regime of truth; and, an order of power that imposes certain patterns of knowledge (Popkewitz 1994).

The Bologna Process forms a system whose curriculum code, despite presenting a mixed focus, is radicalized toward technical–instrumental rationality. The new curricular architecture formulated by the Ministry of Education of Chile, as part of the Program of Improvement of the Quality and Equity of Higher Education (Mecesup2 2005–2010), and implemented with the financial support of the World Bank, in tune with the Bologna Process and the Tuning agreements, is evidence of this. Note that in these 3 aspects: based on learning results and demonstration of skills and in tune with the world, together with the definition and implementation of a system for the transfer of academic credits (Credit Transfer System-Chile, compatible with European ECTS) it allows the mobility of students and an advance towards the articulation of the different levels of higher education (Mecesup2 2005–2010). What kind of architecture is this?

Product curriculum or curriculum focused on learning results; demonstration of competences, modularization of the curriculum; implementation of a System of Transferable Academic Credits, which is a part of its manifestations. Note, the product curriculum or focused on the learning results, whose technical rationality built on the measurement and on the objective of behavior (expected learning), founded on scientia, configures an instrumental perspective of means-end. One of its manifestations is the modularization of the curriculum inspired by the technical perspective in the engineering sciences that appears in the educational field, in professional training, in the mid-1990s. Regarding higher education, it appears linked to the Bologna Process, “the modularization demands to contemplate the entire career as a process of creating precarious skills, which are oriented towards a professional activity, the starting point is a list of skills, any module to carry out a specific and exactly defined competition, whose value is measured in terms of its contribution to the set of capabilities that is presented, hence the learning experiences, methodically defined” (Terhart 2006, pp. 289–290). For this, the Transferable Academic Credit System defines credit as the measurement of time required to achieve the expected learning in each curricular activity. Its implementation in Chile must contain an innovation process: the competency model.

This curricular architecture is implemented with a management model, based on accountability linked to the control and measurement of the results of the new public management and its orientation: to the client, privatization, the market and competition, the business-management focus, management by objectives and results and the agency (Guerrero 2009).

This educational order, which measures and standardizes at all costs, corresponds to a policy of globalization which represents the process of production and reproduction of neo-liberal politics (Bourdieu 2002).

Higher Education in Chile: The Vicissitude as a Permanent Phenomenon

Here we consider higher education in Chile, where the universities goes through a series of vicissitudes as a permanent phenomenon. Here we consider which adverse phenomena will prevail at the behest of the neo-liberal order and its instrumental rationality, introduced by the objectives model in the education reform of 1965, and financed, in part, by the United States and its Alliance for Progress.

The study of Chile requires attention to be given to the consequences of its colonial condition, a result of the colonial expansion of Spain and its policy of domination that decimated the indigenous population. This process that has marked the destiny of Chile, as a kind of wake or perhaps an historical stigma, that has impacted irremediably on educational policies (Oliva 2008).

The 1980 Constitution enshrined the idea of subsidiarity, the axis of the great neo-liberal reform driven by the Chilean civic–military dictatorship (Nef 1999). The principle of subsidiarity argues that no higher society can arrogate to itself the field that to its own specific purpose can satisfy minor entities, especially the family, nor can it invade what is proper and intimate of each human conscience (CPRCH 1980. Chile). Under the subsidiary role of the state and the civil–military dictatorship, the reform of higher education in 1980 occured where higher education policies moved from state control to trusting in the market (Salazar and Leihy 2013). Its manifestations included:

  • An opening of higher education to the market, based on the principle of freedom of education–understood as a freedom to create and maintain educational institutions.

  • Diversification of higher education through the establishment of three institutional levels: (1) universities that could exclusively award university degrees; (2) professional institutes for professions not exclusively associated with a university; and (3) technical training centers to train technicians to a high level.

  • The establishment of non-profit private universities allowed the opening up of the higher education system to competitive demands. The entry of natural and legal persons into the higher education market being facilitated by a system of minimum requirements, creating institutions of higher education and non-university higher education.

  • Division of the two state universities—the University of Chile and the State Technical University—thereby forcing them to part with their regional headquarters.

    • Creation of competitive financing instruments to encourage improvement of quality and the capture of resources in the market (BCN).

This is the normative context since the reform of 1980, which is driven and motivated by a policy of globalization in which the model of competence is higher education in its dimensions: regulations, management and curriculum, in summary, throughout the educational institution.

Higher Education in Brazil

It was in the 1990s that policies promoted by international capital bodies, notably the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the World Bank Group (WB),Footnote 1 and the World Trade Organization (WTO), strongly influenced the implementation of Brazilian higher education programs, projects, and actions.

This literature review intends to demonstrate the influence on asymmetric relations between countries, often under the pretext of interculturality. Sometimes these influences are related to financial and developmental aspects, as well as the provision of loans to peripheral countries, but above all to the economic, cultural, and political control exercised with the creditor countries by the exigency of compliance with contingencies, disguised by technical guidelines of some international organizations. These conditions express the interference of these organisms in the macroeconomic policies of the sectoral policies of the debtor countries.Footnote 2

Thus, a literature review of higher education in Brazil is marked by its relations with these international organizations,Footnote 3 allowing an evaluation that the expansion of access to this level of education occurred during the 1990s and was triggered by the expansion of private space not only in activities directly linked to economic production, but also in terms of the social rights won as a consequence of the struggles of the working class, which generated a deepening of the commodification of education. This process is also expressed in higher education in terms of the discourse of international organizations emphasizing that larger amounts of public funds should go to higher education than basic education. In this regard, such a policy should be reversed by guaranteeing funds for basic education by diversifying sources of funding for higher education.

When the discourse of the international organizations of capital considers the need to reduce public funds for education, especially higher education, opening the possibility for other sources of funding of educational activity through private sectors, it is evident that, in order to guarantee expansion in access to education, it is essential to strengthen the expansion of private education. Contrary to this, the literature review points highlights the democratization of access to higher education with the strong participation of the private sector. The current number of students enrolled in public HEIs is 1,990,078, while universities, university centers, and private colleges total 8,058,623, according to data from the Higher Education Census (BRASIL. MEC 2016).

These data reflect, in part, the role that privatization plays in the history of higher education in Brazil: (1) the expansion of private institutions through the liberalization of educational services; (2) directing public institutions to the private sphere through foundations under private law, charging fees and tuition fees, cutting vacancies for workers in education, and, among other things, cutting funding for infrastructure. In the document La enseñanza superior. Las lecciones derivadas de la experiência, published in 1994 by the World Bank, four strategies were presented for the reform of higher education in Latin America, Asia, and the Caribbean. The first provided for the diversification of HEIs under the assumption of the development of public and private universities and non-university institutions, including polytechnic courses, short courses, and distance education through open universities via modern electronic means.

The diversification of the funding sources for public universities was the second strategy, based on the following guidelines: (1) to mobilize more private funds for higher education; (2) to provide support to qualified students unable to pursue higher education due to insufficient family income; and (3) to improve the allocation and utilization of fiscal resources among and within institutions (World Bank 1994, p. 7).

To this end, the World Bank defends the need to collect registration fees and tuition from students, to cut public funds for non-education activities (housing and food), and to use private funds from the donations of companies and alumni associations, that is through the development of short courses, consultancies, and research agreements signed between universities and companies—such agreements being mediated by foundations that are considered administratively more flexible structures.

The third strategy was to redefine the functions of the state: from executing agency for higher education policy, to becoming an agent that facilitates the consolidation of a new political and legal framework, enabling the implementation of the privatizing guidelines of education: “the types of reforms discussed above are profound changes in the relationship between government and postsecondary education. They also imply, for most countries, a considerable expansion of the private sector at that level of education” (World Bank 1994, p. 61).

Finally, the fourth strategy was the implementation of a policy of “qualification” of higher education is conceived from the efficient service to the private sectors: “The institutions in charge of the advanced programs of education and research should be guided by representatives of the productive sectors. The participation of private sector representatives on the boards of public and private HEIs can help ensure the relevance of academic programs” (World Bank 1994, p. 79).

Thus, the growing process of privatization of higher education is understood by the World Bank as the “democratization” of this level of education, breaking this way with the logic of universal access to education. Three publications seem to reflect the homogenizing nature of some of the recommendations in works, such as Higher education—lessons derived from experience (UNESCO, 1995); Policy Document for Change and Development in Higher Education, or the document resulting from the World Conference on Higher Education in 1998, appeared to differ from the World Bank-designed strategic guidelines. However, in these documents the recommendation to adapt countries and individuals—the local—to a “rapidly changing world” (global) prevails in these documents. The emphasis is on the conception of education in the precepts of the theory of “human capital” (Schultz 1964) as a fundamental strategy to qualify workers in the face of current reorganizations in the world of work and for the consolidation of a cultural policy that both legitimizes and reproduces the process of exploitation of capital in relation to labor.

The influence of this set of international recommendations, in the form of interculturality, can be verified in the most recent legislation on education in Brazil: the Law of Guidelines and Bases of National Education (LDBEN 9394/96) provided for the possibility of using ICT resources in one of the modes of education known as distance education (EAD). However, according to the recommendations of international organizations, HEIs in Brazil could offer up to 20% of the total time of each course recognized by the Ministry of Education in a semi-presential way, that is, using ICT resources, duly regulated in the Ordinance MEC n. 4.059 / 2004. Although it is a recommendation, these indications are consolidated as laws in Brazil.

Possible Conclusions

The fundamental purpose of this chapter has been to identify the areas of social tension arising from the collision between the processes of globalization of higher education and the specificities of national education systems in Russia, Chile, and Brazil.

It was initially evident that the perception of global technologies, like ICT, was that they would be complimentary to traditional modes of teaching and would allow a fresh view of education–even at its higher levels—for both students and teachers with different levels and dimensions of knowledge. Such differences in appropriation of scientific knowledge vary between local and global, but require a constant dialogue mediated by research and exchange of experiences with other students and teachers. Undoubtedly, the role of teacher is strongly modified within the enviroment of tension between local and global . The main teacher’s purpose is to constitute the differential using resources both for the formulation and dissemination of new knowledge that will promote changes at the local level and interact with the global context. In this sense, one of the most necessary social functions postulated by Postman (1994) would be fulfilled. To avoid Technopolis, the surrender of culture (local) to technology (which tends to be part of the global culture), so that these, in the near future, may play a role in training. They do not ignore, but rather show evidence and implement actions to develop ICT resources as instruments of both local and global interlocution.

Specifically in the case of Chile, there is an evidence of a macro-area of tension that reaches the influenced university, in a direct or indirect way through globalization.

  • Regarding institutional matters, globalization is functional to the change of guaranteed education by the State to its opening to the market. Main tensions are: the segmentation in the universities by socioeconomic levels of the students, the increase of the socioeconomic inequality, the indebtedness of students and families.

  • In management, globalization is functional to the neo-management that applies the managerial-approach to educational systems. Esto tensiona a los diferentes actores del sistema, por ejemplo, profesores y estudiantes, que se ven exigidos frente a un sistema fundado en la ciencia y su medición. This stresses the different actors of the system, for example, professors and students, who are required in front of a system based on science and its measurement.

  • In the curriculum, the technical-instrumental rationality and its competence model, linked to accreditation and the hegemonic role of measurement, is also impacted by globalization. The discipline of university knowledge in the triad: competences, modularization, SCT-Chile credits, is an example of the technification of the University, which hinders the possibilities that the university is the place to think.

It is possible to assert that in Chile the University without condition, is today an university, negatively, conditioned by the market. Faced with this mercantile globalization, the challenge of alternative, solidarity and cooperative globalization appears, a counter-hegemonic one, based on the university as a provider for the public good and further as a political project (Santos 2007).

So, the lack of sense of the local seems to be the main feature of the three countries analyzed in this chapter. Despite these traces of resistance which appeared very strong in Chile, the conditions of imposing a new order on the structure and functioning of the universities seems to be a possible look at the issue of tension that challenges educational practices at a higher level in all three countries. In Russia, we find a set of practices of imposition of the demands of international rankings and training for global market competitions imposed from within the Russian parliament. In Brazil, by various means such as the introduction of distance methodologies and the use of ICT as a mode of light training and introduction to global culture, they are part of a delicate moment of an institution that had not yet built its local identity fully. On the issue of the dilemma that the imperatives of global and local placed upon the three different higher education sectors, one may draw upon the words of Sguissardi (2009, p. 12) who said, “…we live in nights of darkness that await clear days”.