Program for Research On Private Higher Education

PROPHE Summary:

The President of the National Association of Private Faculty criticizes the proposal of a new Educational Law for Venezuela, claiming the conditions are not the same for private as for public education. Article 6 of the proposed bill has been in the center of the dispute since it defines how State ministries rule over education. The State would be responsible for certifying the academic competence of private institutions´ faculty to assure that pedagogical and learning processes fit to the country's educational system.

Concerns arise also over other articles of the bill. Students would be obliged to contribute to the nation´s integral development; thus, for example, social and community work would be mandatory every year without salary. Other innovations of the bill are recognized as positive, such as the determination of a 200 days minimum of classes every year and the prohibition of political activities and propaganda in schools. Overall, the bill is being hotly discussed, not only in Congress but also by civil society organizations.

Political changes in Venezuela are producing changes in how education is regulated. The government's leftist/populist tendencies, and some derivative policies in education, lead to great concern in the private sector, both at tertiary and lower levels; similar scenarios have occurred historically in other parts of Latin America. The proposed bill would affect public-private relationships at all levels of the Venezuelan education system. It would increase the State role in education, including over the private and including the tertiary level. How it could affect institutional autonomy, especially in faculty hiring and evaluation would be to be seen. The law being changed-approved in 1980--has guaranteed State protection to private education. Venezuela has generally shown common Latin American patterns in private higher education, led by an elite subsector, with a partly religious subsector, and a growing one of more demand-absorbing, commercial, and non-university institutions.

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Program for Research on Private Higher Education (Financed by the FORD FOUNDATION, complemented by the University at Albany, SUNY) This website is best viewed by IE Browser 5.0 or above and Mozilla Foxfire. Last update April 20, 2011. All rights are reserved. Please contact PROPHE Webmaster for any question or suggestion.


	Director: Daniel C. Levy