Polarization and tensions in higher education in Venezuela

Abstract

This paper present an analysis of the circumstances of the higher education in Venezuela, to bear in mind the polarization and tensions that the country's present. It reviews the differences between the public policies of the first and second period of Hugo Chaves's administration, noteworthy the detrimental polarization and the strong tensions that represent the public autonomous university and the non autonomous new institutions created by the current government. This text consider, for analytic purpose, that the educational system is composed by different dimensions that represents the interconnected axis, between them the author considered, for the sample that it's studied: autonomy, accountability, income, funding, and institutional differentiation. Starting from those axis, presents one series of considerations that could be useful in the possible different settings, from the starting point of the october 2012 Venezuelan elections's, for the creation of a national system of higher education that answer to the needs of all sectors of the country, by the reason that education cannot be a policy by the regime, on the contrary, constitute a State Policy with the participation and responsibility of all the society.