Sponsors: Chilean
Fulbright Commission; Chilean
Ministry of Education
Country: Chile
Program focus: Faculty development
Timeframe: 2001–2006
Description: The Chilean Fulbright
Commission is collaborating with the Ministry on the faculty development
program known as Mejoramiento de la Calidad y Equidad de la Educación
Superior (MECESUP). To date, 22 faculty members of universities
throughout Chile have obtained advanced degrees in the United
States through the program. Although current grantees are now
finishing their studies, the program has ended and applications
will no longer be accepted.
More Information
MECESUP is designed to improve the quality and
equity of Chilean higher education and at its inception represented
one of the first in a new generation of World Bank efforts to
contribute to global development by increasing the capacity of
universities to innovate and to educate.
MECESUP has three main areas of focus:
- development and implementation of an accreditation system
- enhanced links with national development and qualitative
improvement in educational programs at the technical, undergraduate,
and graduate levels
- improvement in the administration of the university system,
both centrally and at the local level
One noteworthy aspect of the program is that universities compete
for funding by presenting proposals to MECESUP for projects that
support their own development priorities. These projects generally
have several components, such as the creation and improvement
of infrastructure, purchase of equipment, and degree and non-degree
training and research support for faculty members.
Many of the intended projects are designed to develop or improve
the quality of graduate programs in Chile, especially at the doctoral
level. To meet this goal, Chile needed to ensure that more faculty
obtain doctoral degrees. Given LASPAU and the Fulbright Program’s
long history of support for faculty development in Latin America
and the Caribbean, LASPAU approached MECESUP and the Chilean Fulbright
Commission in July 1999 to propose a collaborative effort between
the three organizations.
Over much of 2000, the Fulbright Commission, LASPAU, and MECESUP
developed a strategy for a joint program, resulting in a cooperative
agreement between the Commission and MECESUP. Through this agreement,
signed in October 2000, faculty members and graduate students
who are involved in approved MECESUP projects can apply to the
Fulbright Program and, if they are selected, will be considered
Fulbright grantees. LASPAU provides to these individuals the same
placement and monitoring services that are currently provided
to grantees participating in the Fulbright Faculty Development
Program.
The program officially began in December 2000 with a series of
regional workshops designed to address potential questions from
participating universities. Representatives from MECESUP, the
Fulbright Commission, LASPAU, and the Council for International
Exchange of Scholars (CIES) traveled to three cities—Antofagasta
in the north, Concepción in the south, and Valparaíso
in the central region—to explain to universities how they
can access the Fulbright Program in order to send faculty to the
United States for graduate degrees and nondegree research programs.
In Antofagasta, the representatives were able to see firsthand
a positive result of MECESUP funding at the Universidad Católica
del Norte, where a new building with state-of-the-art equipment
has been built to house the marine biology department.
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The Fulbright Program is sponsored by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the United States Department of State. |
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