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Problems in the Professionalization of the University Teaching Career in Central America*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

George R. Waggoner
George R. Waggoner*
Affiliation:
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, The University of Kansas
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Extract

In recent years, working cooperatively through the Council of Central American Universities and working vigorously, too, as independent universities, the five national universities of Central America have been carrying through a tremendous program of academic reform.

Five major movements in Central American higher education have worked toward the elimination or reduction of the traditional isolation of the virtually independent professional schools of which the universities have been composed. These are:

  1. 1. The creation of university cities in which the various divisions are brought together physically.

  2. 2. The creation of general studies programs of a year or more into which all entering university students are placed.

  3. 3. The development of departments in the basic disciplines which serve the pre-professional general studies program and also tend to offer for all of the professional schools in the university the courses in these basic subjects needed in professional curricula.

  4. 4. The strong interest that is arising in post-graduate studies, especially of a regionally planned type.

  5. 5. The growing concomitant interest in research with a view that it, like the training of many kinds of professionals, is necessary for the social, economic, and industrial development of Central America.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Inter-American Studies , Volume 8 , Issue 2 , April 1966 , pp. 193 - 211
Copyright
Copyright © University of Miami 1966

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Footnotes

*

This article is based on research completed under the auspices of the Superior Council of Central American Universities (CSUCA) and the Regional Office, Central America and Panama, of the Agency for International Development.

References

1 Barbara, and Waggoner, George and Wolfe, Gregory P., “Higher Education in Contemporary Central America,” Journal of Inter-American Studies, VI (October 1964), 445–461.Google Scholar

2 Beltrán, Gonzalo Aguirre, La Universidad latinoamericana y otros ensayos (Xalapa, Mexico: Universidad Veracruzana, 1961) p. 17.Google Scholar

“La universidad latinoamericana integra su docencia a base de profesores de horas sueltas. Conforme a tal recurso el titular de una cátedra, sus asociados, ayudantes y auxiliares concurren a la facultad durante el tiempo que les marca el horario establecido e inmediatamente después abandonan el edificio para dedicarse a sus negocios profesionales. Una cátedra común de 3 horas a la semana permite a los docentes tres horas semanarias de contacto con los alumnos y la facultad. El docente, pues, divide su tiempo y sus esfuerzos entre el ejercicio de su profesión y el ejercicio de su cátedra y da, lógicamente, mayor atención a la ocupación que rinde el mayor monto de ingresos. El desempeño de la cátedra viene a quedar así como una actividad secundaria en la vida profesional y si no se abandona del todo es debido al prestigio que su propiedad representa. Desde el punto de vista de la consideración social ser catedrático es’ una garantía de alta capacidad técnica o científica.

“Lo anterior explica porqué la docencia universitaria no existe como profesión en sí”.

3 A sociologist makes the acute comment that the universities need professors who are “especialistas en lugar de aficionados”.

4 Shryock, Richard H., “Comments upon the Reports concerning University Teachers,” The Status of University Teachers (Ghent, Belgium: International Association of University Professors and Lecturers, 1961), pp. 9–10.Google Scholar

5 Shryock, “Comments,” p. 10.

6 Leyes, estatutos y reglamentos generales de la Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala (Guatemala, 1961), pp. 37-43, 84.

7 The campaign, “one million córdobas for education” had by August 1964, collected one quarter million.

8 Claudio Gutiérrez, Perspectiva de un Período Universitario, Ciudad Universitaria, Publicaciones de la Universidad de Costa Rica, Serie Cuadernos Universitarios No. 19, p. 10:

“… en el reclutamiento de profesores extranjeros, hemos preferido contratar a los mejores candidatos sin dirigirnos por un patrón a prioridad lo que deberían ser sus especialidades más estrictas. Una vez más, en este punto, hemos actuado según la máxima de que una universidad es lo que sus profesores la hacen ser”.