Regional Cooperation In Higher Education Within Educative Mercosur

This dissertation consists in an empirical study on how to obtain and strengthen benefits from regional cooperation in higher education(HE)between South American countries inside Educative MERCOSUR(South American Common Market)(EM).We pursue a deep analysis and understanding of different processes,trends,characteristics,facts and aspects that are summarized and taken up in the general conclusions with the objective of making proposals for improving the perspectives and policies in EM.The central motivation of this thesis had been to find better channels to cooperate based on the idea that education in general and higher education in particular are the basis for tending to development of the capacities of every country and that when this is hardly promoted nationally then the rational decision alternative should be regional cooperation.Studying regional cooperation in HE within EM allowed us to find that cooperation is positive in the sense that provides actors with relative gains and also desirable for proper positioning of the states in the internationalization process;then further cooperation will provide each participant with more and better benefits,described as relative gains.This thesis use several main concepts,ideas,definitions and a theoretical framework that had been defined all along the work and specified always that from the different meanings possible the one chosen is the one selected by the researcher justifying that election.This study is,first of all descriptive in order to,in a second moment,be explicative.We presented several research questions and one guide hypothesis,this means that is the central idea that we want to show having chosen one dependent and one independent variables with several indicators each.The hypothesis will refer to the existence of regional cooperation(independent variable)in EM provides all the state members with relative gains(dependent variable),further cooperation will mean more relative gains.EM was created inside MERCOSUR in 1991 and actually the Regional Accreditation for University Degrees from MERCOSUR(ARCU-SUR),is the best example of the success of this regional harmonization formed by Argentina,Brazil,Uruguay,Venezuela,Chile,Bolivia,Paraguay and Colombia including also mobility programs,experts and language exchanges,significant disciplines for the regional development,institutional framework and an educative fund.The variables and indicators have been defined from chapters Ⅰ to Ⅲ being the qualitative part of the research,while in Chapter Ⅳ we followed with compare and contrast the performances of the indicators between countries inside EM regarding mobility of students,regional accreditation,titles recognition,language exchanges,internationalization policies,academic cooperation,institutionalization,funding and significant disciplines for the regional and national development.We also studied the benefits each of them obtained on each cooperative process and we arrived to the conclusion that our hypothesis proved right,cooperation provided all the actors with benefits,which means that more cooperation imply more profits.Chapter I will refer to the theoretical framework and definition of the general concepts used,chapter II discusses around the different proposals for regional cooperation in education in the region using the Bologna process as the main parameter on the desirable direction to go.Chapter III is the Latin American(LAn)general approach and the specification of the South American(SAn)situation to show the performance of the region in the global board(internationalization process).Finally,chapter IV will explain the regional functioning(in the reduced regional board)and compare indicators on countries conduct along the main aspects of EM to verify that it had been a positive regional process and that cooperation within it had been desirable for all its members.The central statement followed had been to prove if regional cooperation is a suitable response for internationalization(global board).The final conclusions,findings and recommendations are of fundamental importance,which are based on the fact that cooperation within EM had been constructive because states obtain relative gains,but still there are several processes,procedures,institutionalization and interferences that should be meliorated.We propose courses of action for regional collaboration and we recommend different possibilities of cooperation with other countries,regions and international organism.Hence,in the end the importance lie in proposing changes and new policy making in order to increase regional cooperation and benefits obtained based-on the firm belief that this will help regional and national development not only in education,but also in other spheres like economical,cultural and social aspects.The learning’s presented are based in the comparison with other realities like Bologna Process,South East Asian and East African Community experiences on the creation of an Education Area for higher education,also its been central the results of the other regional projects in the region and the failures and progress done by EM,which allowed us to have a panorama on what could and should be perfected.Finally we can confirm that the regional cooperation is positive for weak SAn states,that further cooperation and integration is desired,that this widening should include the entire region(LA)not only SA.There is an urgent need to restructure the institutionalization,which should have mechanisms to lower the impact of politic and economic instability and create independent and sovereign structures for regional cooperation.The economic and political interference are of fundamental severity in regional cooperation among weak states like the ones in SA(also in South East Asia and East African Community),comparing these projects with Bologna Process we can realize that this matters count for a healthy development of the regional project.Of central importance had been also the considerations on south-south cooperation;the centrality of higher education to promote regional development,and to understand which are the national individual benefits states can obtain from regional cooperation.