Equity and Unrestricted Access in the Argentine University System

Abstract

History in Argentina shows that, from 1945, rotation between democratic and de facto governments was accompanied with changes in policies of free or restricted university access, respectively. In this way after more than 20 years of democracy, 60 percent of the university matriculation of the public system stays under the modality of free access. Nevertheless, the socioeconomic composition of the students of public universities shows overrepresentation of the higher income quintiles. This means that the policies of free access to the public universities have been better taken advantage of by the population with major resources. However, the ideology of free access remains in the social imaginary as the representative of progress policies. In this chapter, we set out, first of all, to describe the admission system to the universities in Argentina. Second, we analyze the relationship between unrestricted access and equity. Finally, we will raise the necessity to design policies of affirmative action, for the case of Argentina and more likely in other countries of Latin America, that consider the asymmetries in the distribution of the wealth on the questions of race and gender.

Citation

Gvirtz, S. and Duarte, B. (2012), "Equity and Unrestricted Access in the Argentine University System", Allen, W.R., Teranishi, R.T. and Bonous-Hammarth, M. (Ed.) As the World Turns: Implications of Global Shifts in Higher Education for Theory, Research and Practice (Advances in Education in Diverse Communities, Vol. 7), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 151-168. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-358X(2012)0000007010