DOCUMENT RESUME ED 214 449 HE 014 901 AUTHOR Wilcox, Lee, Ed. TITLE The Admission and Placement of Students from Latin America: A Workshop Report. Brazil, Central America, (Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama), Colombia, Venezuela. INSTITUTION National Association for Foreign Student Affairs, Washington, D.C. SPONS AGENCY Department of State, Washington, D.C. , PUB DATE May 1`69 NOTE 105p.; NAFSA Workshop on the Admission and Placement of Students from Latin America at the University of Puerto Rico (San Juan, December 9-20,1968). Additional sponsors included the Council for Latin America and the Creole Foundation. EDRS PRICE MF01/PC05 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS College Admission; *College Students; *Comparative Education;,.Educational Quality; Elementary Secondary Education; *English (Second Language); *Foreign Countries; *Foreign Students; Higher Education; Teacher Education IDENTIFIERS Brazil; *Central America; Colombia; *South America; Venezuela ABSTRACT Information about the educational systems of Brazil, Honduras, ( Colombia, Venezuela, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Panawa that may be helpful to the U.S. college admission officers is presented. Background information aboutthe countries and the current primary, secondary, andpostsecondary educational systems are considered. For Brazil,information is presented about quality factors and curricula, and alist of universities and a glossary of educational terms areincluded. For Venezuela, information is also presented on the grading system, quality factors, and the North American Association ofVenezuela. For Columbia, attention is directed to the academicbachillerato program, technical secondary education, commercial and agriculturalschools and other offerings. Some common characteristics ofthe Central American countries are described. The percentage who attendsecondary school in Central America varies from as low as 4 percent to ashigh as 15 percent. All CentralAmerican state universities are autonomous; however, the tradition of autonomyis not firmly established in all countries. All of these CentralAmerican countries are bringing into their curriculathe concept of general education, or general studies, but the conceptof general studies is meeting with varied reactions from students as well as faculties.The English requirement in Central American, Brazilian, Colombian, andVenezuelan schools is addressed. Recommendations and a bibliography arealso presented for the Central American countries as awhole and for Brazil, Colombia, and Venezuela. (SW) 'by` THE ADMISSION ANDPLACEMENT OF STUDENTS FROM LATIN AMERICA A WORKSHOP REPORT ,.. U S DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) 1...1.----sdocument has been reproduced as received from the person or organization originating It Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality BRAZIL Points of view or opinions stated in this docu ment do not necessarily represent official ME CENTRAL AMERICA pesitic,n or policy Costa Rica El Salvador Guatemala "PERMISSION TO REPRODUCETHIS Honduras MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY Nicaragua Panama 10 /F--.5)71 COLOMBIA TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES VENEZUELA INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC" , National Association for Foreign Student Affairs 1860 19th Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20009 4 Edited by Lee Wilcox University of Wisconsin May, 1969 2/3 a Ot i MEMORIAL This report is dedicated to the memory of Mrs. Gloria D. Keating who served as foreign student admissions officer at the University of New Mexico and who was a participant at the Workshop. Mrs. Keating was stricken ill and died December 21,1968, in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Those of us at the Workshop came to know Mrs. Keating as a dedi- cated professionalin the field of international education and as a warm and sincere person. The respect she earned from her many friends at the Workshop is a tribute to both aspects of her life. Her friends and colleagues in Albuquerque and the Workshop participants have estab- lished an emergency loan fund fo. foreign students in her name at the University of New Mexico. , 0 4 PREFACE Amer- The NAFSA Workshop on the Admissionand Placement of Students from Latin ica was held at the University of PuertoRice from December 9-20, 1968. It was the' thirein what is hoped to be a series of in-depth admissionsworkshops which focus covered Asian coun- on a particular areaof the world (the two previous workshops The basic pur- tries and were held at the East-WestCenter, University of Hawaii). foreign student pose of these workshops is tobring together a group of experienced admissions officers and resource persons withparticular expertise in the countries involved in order to study the foreign,educational systems which supply large num- bers of students to U.S. colleges anduniversities. The findings and recommendations workshops and a re- are then shared with theadmissions community through followup port. of NAFSA is indebted to a number oforganizations for their financial support participants and for this report were the WOrkshop. The expenses for the Workshop financed by grants from the Bureau ofEducational and Cultural Affairs, Department Creole of State, The Ford Foundation, The Councilfor Latin America, Inc., and The Board provided travel grants to two Foundation. The College Entrance Examination travel in of the resource persons, StirliingHuntley and Robert Schuiteman, for Cenvral'America and Colombia, respectively, andfor the Workshop. A grant from the Workshop Creole Foundation supported SanfordJameson's travel to Venezuela and the for Vene- and also supported Professor RogerNava as a counterpart resource person Especializacion Tecnica en el zuela at the Workshop. The lnstituto Colombian° de Exterior (ICETEX) financed Mr. GonzaloArboleda, counterpart resource per.:1 for for William Harrell, re- Colombia. The U.S. Office of Education provided support Latin American and U.S. source person for Brazil. This generous support from both sources is gra-fefu)lyacknowledged. Lee Wilcox 5 . r TABLE OF CONTENTS .4 Page Memorial i Preface ii OVERVIEW BRAZIL 7 8 I. Background II. Current Educational System 11 III. Special Characteristics 12 IV. Quality Factors 14 V. Glossary of Educational Terms 15 VI. Universities in Brazil 18 VII. Recommendations and Bibliography 21 CENTRAL AMERICA 24 24 I. Background II. Costa Rica 32 36 III. El Salvador 38 IV. Guatemala V. Honduras 40 VI. Nicaragua 43 VII. Panama 46 VIII. Recommendations and Bibliography 49 COLOMBIA 52 I. Background 53 II. Current Educational System 55 67 III. Recommendations and Bibliography VENEZUELA 77 I. Background 78 t II. Current Educational System 78 85 III. Grading System 86 IV. Special Characteristics 89 V. Quality Factors VI. The North American Association 91 VII. Recommendations and Bibliography 92 APPENDIX 4 I. Workshop Staff 95 II. Workshop Participants 95 III. Workshop Observers 96 6 0 OVERVIEW days for discus- The general format of theWorkshop provided approximately two Colombia, and Venezuela. sion of each of the fourareas--Brdzil, Central America, Venezuela, a Latin American A U.S. resource person and,in the case of Colombia and information about the particu- resource person provideddescriptive and qualitative followed by a series of case stud- lar educational system. These presentations were admission ies and the formulation by Workshopparticipants of recommendations for presentations upon which and placement decisions. These recommendations and the they are based make up this report. Workshop dis- There were a number of generalrecommendations which grew out of While some of these recom- cussions that were not unique to aparticular country. limited to students from Latin Amer- mendations are notne:andare not necessarily presented below. ica, they received support fromthe participants and are A. Application materials represented at the Workshop varied con- 1. Applications used by institutions other coun- siderably in their usefulnessin dealing with applicants from highlighted the fact that the tries. Our review of individual cases be en- amount and relevance ofinformation about a foreign student can that, hanced by special application forms. It is therefore recommended with whenever possible, a separateapplication form be-developed for use applicants does not justify foreign applicants. If the number of foreign regular applica- a special applicationform, a supplemental form to the tion should be devised. with a foreign applicant is the 2. Of particular importance in dealing assessment of the student'seducational objective. A simple question determine calling for the student's proposedmajor is inadequate to fully It is whether the stuaent's purposes canbe met at our institution. 7 2. therefore recommended that a detailed description of the student's educa- tional objectives be solicited as a part of the norMalap icatIon process and that the appropriateness of our course offerings and the student's qualifications be carefully considered. 3. Itis often difficult to reconstruct a student's educational history from the confbsing array of credentials presented. Apparent gaps in school en- rollment, conflicts or overlap in dates of attendance, and similar inter- pretation problems can be better understood through theuse of a special form calling for a year by year chronology of schools attended. Several institutions represented at the Workshop have used such a form to advan- tage and itis recommendea that institutions supplement their usualap- plication