What challenges do educational institutions face today? From an educational management perspective, what issues do they encounter? “That’s as difficult as counting the hairs on a rabbit,” said Dr. Joaquín Gairín, director of the Organizational Development Team at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and visiting professor at Universidad ORT Uruguay.
However, he noted that one of the challenges facing higher education is international mobility. The fact that part of the curriculum is designed to be completed in different locations requires universities to welcome students from diverse cultural backgrounds and with varying levels of preparation. It also means they must provide support to facilitate their integration.
Another challenge, according to Gairín, is the constant updating of content. He advocates transforming classrooms so that they are no longer merely “places for reproducing content that can be found online,” but rather “spaces for debate.”
In his view, the university should promote “groups that conduct research on new realities,” as well as “encourage reflection on knowledge”: “This requires greater openness in institutional structures and curriculum proposals, which remain very rigid and ill-suited to social demands.”
Gairín, who also serves as coordinator of the ORACLE project —an initiative aimed at analyzing and proposing measures to improve educational inclusion and equity—assessed the impact it has had on the various universities involved.
At the same time, he reviewed the work carried out by Universidad ORT Uruguay outlined how efforts on this issue can continue once the project concludes, since, in his view, “equity is an issue that affects all universities.”
In June 2019, Dr. Gairin visited Universidad ORT Uruguay in Universidad ORT Uruguay teach the course “Management of Organizational Development Processes” as part of the third semester of the Master’s in Educational Management program.