Speaking Personally–with Santiago Acosta Aide
Volume 36, Issue 2
The American Journal of Distance Education
American Journal of Distance Education | Taylor & Francis Online (tandfonline.com)
This is the translated English version of the interview that is noted above.
Santiago Acosta Aide is the Provost of the Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja, a bimodal university in southern Ecuador, a pioneer of distance studies in South America. In addition, he holds the Executive Director position at CALED, the Latin American and Caribbean Institute of Quality in Distance Higher Education. Francisco Cervantes Pérez is the President of the PROEDUCA Network of Universities in Mesoamerica and Vice President of AIESAD, the Ibero-American Association of Higher Distance Education. Previously, he has been the Provost at the UnADM, Universidad Abierta y a Distancia de México (or the Open and Distance University of Mexico), and General Director of Coordination of the Universidad Abierta y Educación a Distancia of the Universidad (or Open University and Distance Education) at UNAM, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.
Francisco Cervantes Pérez (FCP): According to the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ELAC) [1] and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)[2], Latin America and Caribbean region is the most unequal on the planet, both economically and socially. In the field of education, the inequalities in access to higher education are one of the most critical issues. Due to these inequalities, non-face-to-face modalities have emerged and consolidated in open, hybrid, distance, online, and virtual learning environments over the last 50 years. The educational innovation based on scientific and technological advancements tied to the fourth industrial revolution has allowed the development of educational and academic models responding to the needs of contemporary society (the cybernetic learning society, typical of the twenty-first century, due to the interaction of humans and automats in digital environments, where communication between the is carried out under space and time control schemes), to educate students and professionals parting from the capacities they have developed at each specific moment so that their contribution to social, economic, political, and cultural development within their national context prevails throughout their lives.
In this context, for more than 70 years, higher education institutions (or IES, per their acronym in Spanish) consortiums have formed, such as UDUAL, Unión de Universidades de América Latina y El Caribe (or Latin American and Caribbean Universities Union), and AIESAD, Asociación Iberoamericana de Educación Superior a Distancis (or Ibero-American Association of Distance Higher Education). These associations involve IESs that are 100% traditional, IESs with academic offerings in non-face-to-face modalities, and IESs that work 100% in digital environments. Dr. Acosta, in your opinion, how have these consortiums contributed to the consolidation of the strengths and development of educational, technological, and management resources among IESs members? To strengthen and promote education sustained on digital environments and tools in the context of the challenges posed by the evolution of society in the twenty-first century and the fourth industrial revolution, exacerbated by the COVID-19 global pandemic impact since the late 2019s?
Santiago Acosta Aide (SAA): In our context, the word “consortium” can be referred, in a colloquial way, to groups of universities that are owned by investment funds or large companies that are dedicated to the education sector. In Brazil, for example, there are the corporation conglomerates Ânima, Ser or Kroton. In this sense, the word usually has a pejorative connotation because it associates higher education with a profit or educational commodification. Nevertheless, the meaning you propose to me is the right one- associations of universities grouped around a common goal for which they share efforts. From this point of view, the consortiums have been fundamental. In Latin America and the Caribbean, they have played an integrative, cooperative, and networking role. We are a cluster of countries that share many elements in common (linguistic, historical, religious, political). However, we are not integrated from the educational point of view. Instead, we are separated by the perception that there is a difference in the quality of education in the different university education national systems. This can be easily seen in the international mobility of university students. On the one hand, we have little student mobility; on the other hand, only 38% of Latin American students choose universities in the region for mobility purposes. Most prefer the United States and Europe. In this context, universities’ consortiums have served to open common spaces for dialogue and exchange of experiences. Moreover, the consortiums have helped, among other things, to set up institutional leaderships. In this sense, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), is undoubtedly one of the most prominent universities and is the one that, with its prestige and resources, sustains the UDUAL. My impression is that, of the existing consortiums in the region, AIESAD is one of the most active and is dedicated to distance education. In reality, it is an Ibero-American consortium, which gives it greater power.
FCP: To what do you owe AIESAD’s outstanding profile?
SAA: The network was formed around a modality that had needed to be vindicated before the rest of the universities in the region, which at the time were, and still are, mostly face-to-face. In our countries, the distance modality has usually been associated with low-quality offerings in the perception of academics. In some cases, this was true. That made universities that offered distance education, which did so with rigor and seriousness, partner and confer prestige to the modality. It has been a work of defense by working on the quality of the offering. AIESAD has played a significant role in the promotion of quality, as well as in educational and technological research, scientific dissemination of the modality through congresses, teacher training through workshops and seminars, public defense of the distance modality, as well as promotion of academic leaders who have been very active. The result is that today the region is aware of distance or bimodal universities, including those grouped around AIESAD, which enjoy an excellent reputation.
FCP: What can you tell us about UDUAL?
SAA: UDUAL has carried out a task of corporate representation of the region worldwide. It is the primary reference association of our region in the face of other international entities. From the UDUAL, I am particularly interested in two major projects. The first, ENLACES, Espacio Latinoamericano y Caribeño de Educación Superior (or Latin American and Caribbean Space for Higher Education), is not an initiative managed by UDUAL but by a group of Latin American university networks, including UDUAL. The second is ECESELI, Espacio Común en Lína para América Latina u el Caribe (or, Common Online Space for Latin America and the Caribbean). Both projects are complementary and begin, with good judgment, with short and viable steps: harmonization of careers, mutual recognition, academic mobility, and joint postgraduate courses offerings. I hope that both projects grow and consolidate.
FCP: Since the last quarter of the previous century, undergraduate studies are no longer enough, which has become more evident in this twenty-first century. In addition, the worldwide computerization and automation of approximately 50% of the jobs we know[3] means that university graduates in their professional development may have to re-scale their knowledge and skills or redefine them. For this reason, the other two pillars of higher education, postgraduate and continuing education have become more important[4], as they allow university graduates to meet permanent lifelong learning. All of this is in a social context that is associated with globalization processes where, in education, borders and boundaries have collapsed regarding the face-to-face modality of traditional IESs.
In this context, how do you see the role of the internationalization of higher education and the efforts that IESs must make to contribute to social, economic, political, and cultural development, not only at the local and national levels but, through their academic offerings, in regional and international levels, for the acquisition of the skills, knowledge, and competences of citizens in their lifelong learning processes?
SAA: To the context that you rightly describe, we must add that the pandemic, with different characteristics, has limited us for approximately two years. There is no doubt that the development of digital technologies is altering the concept of internationalization. It is no longer necessary to travel or spend more or less prolonged periods abroad to insert ourselves in a context of work or study with an international perspective. Anyone can study at a foreign university from a device with an internet connection. Internationalization at home, in this extraordinary context, will increase. The pandemic, in this sense, will accelerate changes in virtual experiences of internationalization. Technology is nothing more than a means. What is the purpose? For some universities, the goal of internationalization is the expansion and the desire for profit. For others, a genuine willingness to cooperate and develop alliances. These are two different visions of internationalization in which intermediate solutions can fit. Unfortunately, Latin America and the Caribbean seem to be, for not a few first-world universities, a geographical area to expand and achieve competitive advantages. There are exceptions, of course.
FCP: What would be those exceptions?
SAA: Precisely, certain universities’ consortiums bring together European and Latin American universities to develop cooperation projects and joint initiatives. The Asciación Columbus (or Columbus Association) is a good example, as well as the AUIP, Asociación Unverwsitaria Iberoiamericana de Posgrado (or the Ibero-American Postgraduate University Association), the Grupo de la Rábida (our The Rábida Group), promoted by Andalusian universities, and in our environment, the OUI-IOHE, Organización Universitaria Interamericana (Inter-American University Organization), to give some examples. Spanish and Portuguese universities are used to projecting a more cooperative vision toward Latin America. Still, Europe has stopped looking toward Latin America. Instead, they are more interested in Africa’s educational and economic development by the magnitude of the migratory phenomenon toward the continent. The United States looks to Asia primarily for expansion reasons. My impression is that Latin America and the Caribbean are being somewhat marginalized from the rest of the World from an educational point of view, except for the Anglophone Caribbean, which has as a space for collaboration in the Commonwealth of Learning. In this sense, internationalization, understood as cooperation, has to seek momentum in the consortiums and common knowledge and higher education spaces.
FCP: We have already talked about consortiums. Tell us about the role you think common education spaces have in our region.
SAA: Three initiatives affect the region. A Latin American one, called ENLACES, Espacio Latinoamericano y Caribenño de Educación Superior (or Latin American and Caribbean Space of Higher Education), to which I have already referred, and which is advancing very slowly. The other two are supraregional: EIC, Espacio Iberoanmericano del Conocimiento (or Ibero-American Knowledge Space), created by Ibero-American heads of State and government since the XV Ibero-American Summit in Salamanca (2005), and ALC-UE, Espacio Común de Educación Superior de América Latina, el Caribe y la Unión Europea (or CLAC-EU, Common Higher Education Area of Latin America and the Caribbean and the European Union), which emerged from a declaration made by national governments of both world regions at the I CELAC-EU Summit in Santiago de Chile in 2013. Of these last two initiatives, the CLAC-EU is almost stagnant due to a lack of interest from education ministers from both continents and the European Commission. The project that is being very active in the promotion of proposals is the EIC. It would be logical for Latin America and the Caribbean to be the first to form a common space for higher education and then to see how to integrate with other regions. I also do not see any disadvantage in progressing parallelly in more than one integration project, one Latin American and Caribbean, and the other Ibero-American.
What is missing is a horizon of greater integration of our region. Our countries do not see themselves as complementary bodies but as vastly different interests. In Europe, educational integration took off when it was put at the service of economic unions and markets. In Latin America and the Caribbean, there is no such motivation. Therefore, educational integration has no push. Why integrate if professionals will not enjoy free mobility in our subcontinent? On the other hand, the region’s higher education systems are asymmetrical, with considerable disparities in quality and scientific production capacity. However, I very much appreciate that, despite the lack of visible progress in regional integration, these initiatives create frameworks for cooperation and joint work that bring universities closer.
FCP: Let’s go back to the institutional sphere of internationalization, if you do not mind. How do you see the international projection of universities in the framework of digital technologies, lifelong education, and training requirements for global citizenship?
SAA: To me, it seems legitimate to look for an international audience for our distance learning proposals, especially in the areas that you proposed, that of postgraduate and continuing education. However, I insist on not prioritizing the capture of new markets but the provision of quality educational offerings and involve alliances with universities in other countries, through joint degrees, for example. Let us give educational quality to our region, encourage academic cooperation, and then get involved in broader projects that will further enhance research, exchange, and mobility. In this way, we will be able to work on more integration with cooperation and solidarity between Latin American and Caribbean universities. In this sense, digital tools and non-face-to-face modalities are crucial. There can be no innovation in internationalization if we leave aside digital technologies and virtuality. The most disruptive and innovative proposals are being given worldwide in the non-face-to-face teaching sector.
FCP: The most recurrent concern since the formal appearance of the distance educational offerings has been the quality of the processes associated with the educational, administrative, and technological services that underlie higher education. In addition, we have talked a lot about higher education not only being inclusive – facilitating the entry of people who meet the requirements set by the programs they want to join – but also must act inclusively – ensuring that accepted students, especially those with different needs or with a disability, have all the required conditions to pursue your university studies successfully.
Dr. Acosta, you are the Director of the Executive Secretariat of CALED, Instituto Latinoamericano y del Caribe de Calidad en Educación Superior a Distancia (or the Latin American and Caribbean Institute for Quality in Distance Higher Education); based on your experience, what do you consider to be the effective conditions under which it is possible to guarantee that the education provided by the IESs is relevant and with quality in the academic, administrative and technological services supporting its educational offer in the form of distance education, online or virtual?
SAA: I am very grateful for this question because the increasing offer in those modalities that involve distance or virtuality can present challenges for quality. During the pandemic, many face-to-face universities achieved, among others, two things. First, overcoming the resistance of many teachers to virtual teaching and learning spaces. Second, confirming that digital technologies are indispensable for institutional sustainability, both economically and pedagogically, in the face of all kinds of future risks. After the pandemic, all universities will virtualize, to different degrees, their teaching practices, either through a face-to-face modality enriched by technologies, with the incorporation of hybrid forms of teaching or through the implementation of virtual or distance offerings. But in the same way that a “wave” of new supply is created in these non-traditional modalities, we will be more likely to witness uneven academic quality. To correct this, quality assurance mechanisms specially designed for each rising modality will have to be implemented.
FCP: Do you think we have them in our region?
SAA: Allow me to respond with a brief reflection on quality assurance in the region, regardless of the modality. In Latin America and the Caribbean, there is a very high diversity of quality assurance systems. In some countries, institutional accreditation is voluntary, such as in Mexico, Colombia, Paraguay, the Dominican Republic, and Peru. In others, it is mandatory, which happens in Brazil, Chile, Cuba, and Ecuador. However, in Argentina, there is talk of institutional evaluation and not of accreditation. There is also considerable diversity regarding the accreditation of careers and programs. Therefore, diversity is very high, and it is difficult to harmonize the systems.
In the region, quality assurance systems are tied to accreditation and have become bureaucratic and intrusive bodies in many cases. The pretension of wanting to measure all the institutional dimensions in evaluating careers has made them elephantine. In some cases, when external evaluators arrive at universities to do on-site evaluations, they have not had the time to read self-evaluation reports of tens of thousands of pages. Thus, the peer evaluators cannot adequately carry out their task. These are expensive systems for universities and the State and do not consider the great variety of universities’ contexts, even within the same country. Hence, they cause isomorphy in the system. My view is that evaluation models for quality assurance are rigidly applied, do not allow flexibility, and sometimes do not provide room for innovation. They tend to their own permanence without much possibility of evolution. Concerning the evaluation and accreditation of distance education institutions, its instruments are less developed than face-to-face education evaluation instruments. This adds to the fact that non-face-to-face modalities are changing a lot. At the same time, the models that evaluate them do not adapt to their changing characteristics and are more anchored to the schemes of a more traditional distance modality.
FCP: How do you think these drawbacks can be overcome?
SAA: If education changes, it transforms exponentially, as they say. Why not think that it can also change how it is evaluated and accredited? We need to innovate quality assurance systems because, as I said before, they are necessary for the transparency, continuous improvement, and prestige of higher education: in all fashions, but especially in the case of distance education. However, this necessary renewal of quality assurance cannot be carried out without new policies, the commitment of the universities, and of course, of the agencies themselves.
FCP: Do you see hopeful signs in that regard?
SAA: Yes, there are. I point out two. On the one hand, the proposals for the construction of common spaces for education and knowledge raise the issue of quality assurance. Without comparable quality among national education systems, there is no possibility of integration. In that sense, the ENLACES has a working group dedicated to this topic. Also, the OEI, Organización de Estados Iberoanmericanos (or Organization of Ibero-American States), advocates for a common space of knowledge, education, science, and technology among Ibero-American nations, wants to undertake the challenge of harmonizing national evaluation and accreditation systems. Still, none of this ensures that the same bureaucratic and controlling schemes are not asserted. However, again it is distance and virtual education that open spaces to shelter favorable expectations. The OEI and RIACES, which is the network of Ibero-American quality agencies, have created a quality seal, which they have called Kalos Virtual Iberoamericano (KVI). CALED has contributed to shaping the evaluation model of that seal, making our own model of evaluation of distance careers available to KVI. Our model rests on what really affects the academic quality of distance programs: leadership, policy and strategy, resources and partnerships, development of people, recipients, and educational processes; in addition, it is clearly results-oriented.
FCP: In summary, and to end our conversation, what values do you think should preside over quality evaluation in distance education?
SAA: We must look at what kind of higher education in general, and especially distance and virtual, we would like to have to meet the educational needs of human beings for life, towards the demands of the new knowledge society, and of locally-relevant global citizenship. From my point of view, this education must be oriented to new values and traits, in addition to previous ones that cannot expire: inclusion, resilience, equity, institutional autonomy, flexibility, hybridization, innovation, multimodality, diversity. On this basis, let us ask ourselves what the systems and models of evaluation and quality assurance aimed at this type of education should look like. I believe that the current ones must be transformed a lot to meet this new educational demand of society. Moreover, it is necessary to go to the essentials, not pretend to measure everything; be more agile, less bureaucratic; and do more with less. If we took these guidelines into account, I believe that we could, in the evaluation of distance education, online and virtual, aspire to have common standards, criteria, and norms. Maybe the KVI seal is a good start. Why not?
FCP: Thank you, Dr. Acosta, for this conversation. Undoubtedly, education opens up challenges that require all our effort, which must involve all levels of government, higher education institutions, companies, and civil society as a whole. Our region and the World need this commitment because, although multilateral organizations see it as the most unequal region globally, it is a place of great opportunities for us in academia. Education is one of the best instruments, if not the best, to promote social and economic progress and form the political and culture of our People.
[1] https://www.cepal.org/es/articulos/2016-america-latina-caribe-es-la-region-mas-desigual-mundo-como-solucionarlo.
[2] https://www.cepal.org/es/articulos/2016-america-latina-caribe-es-la-region-mas-desigual-mundo-como-solucionarlo.
[3] Frey, C.B., and Osborne, M.A. (2017). “The future of employment: How susceptible are jobs to computerization?” https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2016.08.019.
[4] World Economic Forum (2017). The Global Human Capital Report, 2017.
