September 10th, 2003 - Washington DC, USA The Education Group of the World Bank's Human Development Network and the World Bank Institute's Education Program held an international global dialogue with Latin American participants in Bolivia, Ecuador, Mexico and Peru. The dialogue was actually part of a cycle of international videoconferences being organized this year by the Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon in Mexico. In this, the fifth videoconference of the series, the connection and interaction was expanded through the Global Development Learning Network (GDLN) to allow for the regional participation.

The international participants were treated to a dynamic and thought provoking presentation offered by Dr. Jamil Salmi, Sector Manager of the Education Group of the World Bank's Human Development Network and Head of the World Bank's Thematic Group on Higher Education. Prior to the interactive dialogue, participants were given access to Dr. Salmi's latest book, "Constructing Knowledge Societies: New Challenges for Tertiary Education" as background reading. Dr. Salmi began his presentation by challenging his audiences to imagine...imagine a university that guarantees that if after six months you don't find a job you get your money back, imagine universities being ranked on internal internet usage, imagine universities offering degrees that are valid for five years, imagine public universities not wanting access to public resources so as to not lose autonomy... These were a few of the ideas and challenging thoughts Dr. Salmi presented the audiences with to open the discussion on the new challenges being faced in financing tertiary education.

In his presentation, Dr. Salmi discussed the new global trends being faced by developing countries that affect not only how the tertiary education systems operate, but their purpose as well. He continued by highlighting the converging effects of globalization, the growing importance of knowledge as a principal motor of economic growth, and the information and communication revolution as being among the most critical aspects of the dimensions of change. He stressed the point that these changes imply threats as well as opportunities and a positive aspect that arises is the role of tertiary education in constructing knowledge communities not only to create intellectual capacity, but also to promote continuous learning practices to update knowledge and skills in an ongoing manner. (Dr. Salmi's presentation)

Dr. Salmi proceeded to discuss the changing tertiary education landscape and noted another favorable factor as being the appearance of new types of tertiary education institutions and forms of competition that force traditional institutions to change their way of working and offering services, as well as taking advantage of the opportunities that the new information and communication technology offers. Furthermore, he noted that as new challenges and opportunities appear, the majority of developing countries see themselves in the urgent need to sort through difficulties that arise from the inadequate response to problems that tertiary education systems have been facing for a long time. As a conclusion, Dr. Salmi stressed the need to expand coverage of tertiary education and to improve its quality with sustainable financing and modern management practices. Following Dr. Salmi's presentation, participants in Bolivia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico and Peru had the opportunity to directly present their questions and comments to Dr. Salmi and to hear of the experiences and challenges being faced by their Latin American colleagues.

To learn more about the work of the World Bank in Tertiary Education, please visit the World Bank's Tertiary Education website. To learn about future GDLN activities in education related topics, please contact Carmen Carpio at the following e-mail address: ccarpio@worldbank.org