Venezuela: Higher Education, Neoliberalism and Socialism. In D. Hill & E. Rosskam (eds.) The Developing World and State Education: Neoliberal Depredation and Egalitarian Alternatives, New York: Routledge, pp. 71-89. (2009) (original) (raw)

Schooling for twenty-first century socialism: Venezuela’s Bolivarian project

The global dominance of neoliberal policy prescriptions in recent decades has been well documented, with particular implications for educational systems. These include reduced public expenditure and provision, the promotion of individual (parental) choice, competition, increased user-pays and the privatisation of education. Against this background, this paper reviews contemporary educational reforms in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, which are moving in a counter direction. In particular, I examine the expansion of publicly funded education, and its overtly politicised objective of preparing citizens to contribute to the Bolivarian socialist project being advanced in the country. Through this counter example, I argue that the Venezuelan case highlights the potential for substantive policy alternatives to neoliberalism into the twenty-first century.

Venezuela: Higher Education For All. The Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies, 4(1) (2006).

The Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies, 4(1): 160-94., 2006

OPEN SOURCE - PLEASE ACCESS VIA LINK BELOW. This paper is a first approximation to the higher education (HE) reforms currently under way in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. Under Hugo Chávez' presidency, free HE has become a constitutional right, implemented via the two recently created national HE programmes Universidad Bolivariana de Venezuela and Misión Sucre. Based on policy documents, government reports, interviews and observation, we explore the strategic role ascribed to HE in the government's pursuance of economic, political, social and cultural transformation towards a 'Socialism of the 21st Century'. What we term 'higher education for all' (HEFA) is occurring exactly at a time when the commodification and privatisation of HE is pushed ahead on a global scale. Throughout the paper we argue that Venezuelan HE policy and practice constitute a counter-hegemonic effort to the prevalent global HE agenda.

The decolonization of higher education: An analysis of Venezuela's 2009 Ley Organica de Educacion

The 2009 Ley Orgánica de Educación (the “Organic Law of Education,” hereafter “LOE”) of Venezuela is a recent foundational document that represents goals of the Bolivarian Revolution within the educational sector. Passed ten years into the administration of President Hugo Chavez, this document articulates a vision of the educational provisions for Socialism of the XXIst century. While many tenets of the law support international declarations of educational targets and development milestones, such as Education for All, democratization, national sovereignty, and indigenous rights, the mechanisms for achieving these goals are highly contested within the Venezuelan higher education community. Additionally, they counter many recommendations of Northern aid and lending organizations, which have imposed goals of privatization, decentralization, and competition upon higher education in the Global South as conditionalities of funding, yet have arguably exacerbated inequalities in beneficiary societies. The LOE embraces a radical model of educational inclusion and governance influenced by the anti-colonial principles of Venezuela’s national hero, Simon Bolivar, who serves as a symbol for national sovereignty, regional solidarity, anti-imperialism, and valorization of cultural identity. This study examines the language, provisions, and ideologies that construct the LOE through critical discourse analysis to determine how it is intended to implement the process of decolonization. Through an analytical framework of liberation theory, I link the discourse of the LOE to the societal goals of the Bolivarian Revolution including “participatory, protagonistic democracy” and national self-determination that counter the guidelines of the Washington Consensus toward education. In addition, I examine the implications it presents for redefining the nature of higher education in Venezuela in particular and in the Latin American region in general.

Venezuela Under Chávez: The Prospects and Limitations of Twenty-First Century Socialism, 1998-2009

Socialist Studies, 2010

This article takes stock of major developments in the political economy of contemporary Venezuela after ten years under Hugo Chávez. It is argued that the Bolivarian process has done a great deal to rejuvenate the international critique of neoliberalism and to bring discussion of socialism back on the agenda of the Left. At the same time, there has been no socialist revolution in Venezuela, and Chavismo is ridden with profound and abiding contradictions. This article considers the historical backdrop of the Bolivarian process, beginning with the end of authoritarianism and the Pact of Punto Fijo and the rise and fall of orthodox neoliberalism at the end of the twentieth-century. The article then describes Chavez’ gradual and partial radicalization between 1999 and 2009 and finally concludes that the global economic crisis poses a unique set of challenges and opportunities for the Bolivarian process in the midst of significantly reduced oil revenues.

Venezuela: terminal crisis of the rentier petro-state model?

Over the 15 years of the Bolivarian government in Venezuela, significant changes have taken place in the political culture, the social and organisational fabric, and the material living conditions of previously excluded low-income groups. Through multiple social policies (known as "missions") aimed at different sectors of the population, levels of poverty and extreme poverty have been reduced significantly. According to ECLAC, Venezuela has becometogether with Uruguay-one of the two countries with the lowest levels of inequality in Latin America. 1 People are better fed. 2 Effective literacy programmes have been carried out. With Cuban support, the Barrio Adentro mission has brought primary medical care to rural and urban low-income groups throughout the country. The state pensions system has been massively expanded to include millions of older people. The increase in university enrolment has been equally extraordinary. For the last few years, a housing programme for people with low incomes has been taken forward. Unemployment has been kept at a low level and informal-sector employment has been reduced from 51% in mid-1999 to 41% in mid-2014. 3 The amount spent on social investment between 1999 and 2013 is estimated to total some US$650 billion. 4 According to the UNDP, Venezuela's Human Development Index rose from 0.662 in the year 2000 to 0.748 in 2012, taking the country's human development ranking from medium to high. 5

Are Returns to Education on the Decline in Venezuela and does Mission Sucre have a Role to Play?

2011

Anecdotal evidence points to a falling standard of living for the educated in Venezuela. During this same period, President Hugo Chávez implemented several education reforms. We focus on a major university education reform known as Mission Sucre and its potential impact on returns to university education. First, we show that returns to education decreased significantly in Venezuela from 2002 to 2008. Subsequently, we explore the impact of the program on non-program participants and provide evidence that a substantial part of the falling returns at the tertiary level can be linked to Mission Sucre. Our results suggest that the reform created a negative externality on students who did not participate in the program, leading to a 2.7 percentage point decline in returns to university education for non-Mission Sucre students in the 23–28 age cohort.► First, we answer whether returns to education decreased in Venezuela after 2002. ► We find that the average returns to education declined by 3.1 percentage points and pay off university education fell by over 10 percentage point over 2002–2008. ► Motivated by these findings, we evaluate the possible role of Mission Sucre on the significant decline in returns to university education. ► Using a difference in difference strategy, we find that Mission Sucre led to a 2.7 percentage point decrease in returns to university education among the 23–28 age cohort.

Between Permanent Revolution and Permanent Liminality: Continuity and Rupture in the Bolivarian Government's Higher Education Reform

After traditional academics mobilized university autonomy against government intervention and supported the coup d'état against Hugo Chávez, his government created a parallel system of public universities. María Egilda Castellano headed the effort to extend university access to poor Venezuelans. The events of her terms as vice minister of education (1999–2002) and rector of the Bolivarian University (2003–2004) and her subsequent career show the difficulty the Bolivarian government has had in creating sustainable institutions and challenge the applicability of the concept of permanent revolution to the Bolivarian process. -- Después de que los académicos tradicionales usaron la autonomía universitaria en contra de la intervención del gobierno y apoyaron el golpe de estado contra Hugo Chávez, su gobierno creó un sistema paralelo de universidades públicas. María Egilda Castellano dirigió el esfuerzo por extender el acceso a las universidades a los venezola-nos pobres. Los resultados de su trabajo como vice ministra de educación (1999–2002) y rectora de la Universidad Bolivariana (2003–2004) y su subsiguiente carrera profe-sional demuestran la dificultad que el gobierno bolivariano ha tenido para crear institu-ciones sostenibles y pone en duda la aplicabilidad del concepto de revolución permanente al proceso bolivariano.