THE EMANCIPATION OF POPULAR CLASSES AND ENDOGENOUS DEVELOPMENT IN VENEZUELA: STATE UNIVERSITIES INTO CITY UNIVERSITIES

Abstract

The Venezuelan government has promoted a set of transformations in the last decade concerning political, ideological, economical, social, cultural and educational aspects. Transforming state universities into city universities constitutes one of these transformations, what effectively came true in two environments: Mission Sucre, and the Venezuelan Bolivar University. Studying these changes from a reflexive and critical standpoint, and taking the emancipation of popular classes and the endogenous development of the communities as criteria for analysis is the goal of this paper. Preliminary findings point to: 1) the presence of emancipation features characterized by: the inclusion of popular majorities in college education; the learning ideas applied to work fields; curricular flexibility; innovation in teaching practice; and 2) the impact of endogenous development, displayed by: the implementation of learning projects that link the university to the community space; the opening of college education to studying and critically understanding the matters  of their concrete reality and applying the projects developed by teachers and students inside their own communities. Our research reveals that transforming state universities in city universities ended up enhancing the educational sector of Venezuelan colleges, apart from having contributed to propelling the emancipation of man and some alternate routes for endogenous development.