LIST OF PANELS

The outbreak of coronavirus has become a major disruption for universities and higher education institutions around the world. Lockdowns ordered by governments in early 2020 forced educational authorities and university administrators to brought academic activities from classrooms and labs to an entirely online learning environment. The aim of this panel is to analyze and discuss the impact of the Covid-19 crisis on higher education governance in Latin America. We will focus on (1) how governance regimes cope to deal with inequalities and the digital turn; (2) how the passage from analogue to digital education have reframed the role of public and private actors in steering higher education through the crisis, and (3) possible post-covid scenarios for higher education governance at both systemic and institutional level (challenges, possibilities and risks).
 
The Covid-19 crisis has meant a widening and deepening of inequities within an across Latin America, rising additional concerns about educational exclusion (for gender, race and social condition), quality assurance and financial strategies to face the impact of the pandemic on tertiary education. In the last 20 years access, quality and funding have been the core problems that have shaped what we identified as national governance regimes (González-Ledesma & Álvarez-Mendiola, 2020). Efforts to palliate inequalities on higher education basically relied on increasing the participation of low income students on public universities, and/or allowing the expansion of an unregulated offer of private institutions. And indeed, enrollment went from 20 to 45% between 2000 and 2017 (BM, 2017). However, by neglecting quality and funding the last enrollment expansion has been criticized by some authors as unequal and fragile (Chiroleu, 2013 & 2014). To what extent do the strengths and weaknesses demonstrated by national higher education systems in recent months remain in line with this hypothesis?
 
The passage from analogue to digital education rise questions about the role of public and private actors in steering higher education through the crisis. Among the latter, EdTech giants like Google and Microsoft are taking advantage of the pandemic to promote their platforms and digital resources throughout national educational systems. In doing so they are also gaining a central role in shaping the “hybrid” or blended model of education provision envisaged by the World Health Organization (2020:17) for the near future. The accelerated development of communication and information technologies by EdTech giants has created a gap that cannot be bridged easily by any government. In fact, Latin American governments and universities have no option but to pay for the products and services offered by EdTechs.

1) Does the current preponderance of tech giants launch a completely new stage of privatization of education? How private learning environments will determine how higher education is conceive and provide? Based on these elements, the panel will allow a discussion of possible post-pandemic scenarios for the governance of higher education in Latin America.
 
References
Chiroleu Adriana (2013). “¿Ampliación de las Oportunidades en la Educación Superior o Democratización? Cuatro Experiencias en América Latina”, en: Actualidades Investigativas en Educación, vol. 13, núm. 3, pp. 1-24.
 
Chiroleu Adriana (2014), “Desigualdades en Educación Superior y Políticas Públicas. Los Casos de Argentina, Brasil y Venezuela. Universidades, vol. LXV, núm. 59, pp. 9-22.
González-Ledesma & Álvarez-Mendiola (2020). “Neoliberals versus Post- Neoliberals in the Formation of Governance Regimes in Latin America’s Higher Education”. In: Jarvis, Darryl; Capano, Giliberto, Convergence and Diversity in the Governance of Higher Education: Comparative Perspectives. UK, Cambridge University Press.
 
World Bank (2017). Momento Decisivo. La Educación Superior en América Latina y el Caribe, Grupo Banco Mundial.
 
WHO (2020). Education during Covid-19 and beyond, United Nations.

The panel will welcome contribution that discuss:

a) How different governance regimes in Latin America cope to deal with inequalities and the digital turn in higher education 
b) How the passage from analogue to digital education have reframed the role of public and private actors in steering higher education through the crisis, and 
c) Possible post-covid scenarios for higher education governance at both systemic and institutional level (challenges, possibilities and risks). 

Papers may be either theoretical or empirical. Theoretical papers may discuss about (1) the relationship between higher education governance and inequality; or (2) the strengths and weaknesses of systemic or institutional governance in facing the Covid-19 crisis. Empirical papers may present original studies analyzing national and/or institutional responses to the Covid-19 from a comparative perspective.