Starting this year, students from Unicamp's technical colleges – Cotuca and Cotil – will be able to participate in exchange programs with Argentine institutions. According to Cristiane Megid, director of the Executive Board of Basic and Technical Education (Deeduc), Unicamp has just signed a partnership with five Argentine universities that have technical colleges for the exchange of students in the execution of short projects, lasting up to 10 days.
Through the agreement, Brazilian students will be able to develop projects in partnership with colleagues from the National University of Hurlingham (Unahur), the University of Buenos Aires (UBA), the National University of Quilmes (UNQ), the National University of Jose C. Paz (Unpaz) and the National University of San Martín (Unsam).
The first two groups of students from Unicamp's technical schools will travel to Argentina in May. There will be eight students – four from each school –, with gender equality, two men and two women. In addition, 50% of the group must be made up of black or mixed-race students. They will be supervised by a teacher from Cotuca and another from Cotil.
Megid explains that the program aims to offer teenagers the experience of studying in another country, with its own peculiarities. One of the projects to be taken to Argentina is related to mechatronics – a branch of engineering focused on the design of computer-controlled systems. There will also be a project in the area of Humanities.
According to Megid, until now, this type of program was only possible due to an agreement that Unicamp has with the Santader bank, which finances scholarships for exchange programs. The agreement with the bank continues, but Deeduc wanted to create a more comprehensive alternative. Thus, the direct agreement between the universities was created – which makes the process faster and cheaper.
The professor says that exchange programs have long existed in technical schools, but they generally take students to Europe or the United States. One of the goals of this new program, she says, is to strengthen cultural ties between neighboring countries.
“Argentina is an important economic partner of our country and, in addition, has similar educational and industrialization models to ours,” explains the professor. “We believe that [the exchange] can also reinforce the feeling of Latinness. The stronger we are within Latin America, the more successful we are in promoting these students; so that they can expand their academic and professional relationships and this can have an impact on their lives,” she emphasizes.
other connections
The student exchange program should lead to other agreements between Unicamp and Argentine institutions, such as academic and research collaboration. “We are starting talks with Unpaz to form a research group on teaching methodologies for technical schools. The idea is to focus on professional training,” he reveals.
Megid also says that she intends to expand the partnership to include relationships between early childhood education teachers. “This way, professionals from DEdIC (Division of Early Childhood and Complementary Education) will also be able to work with Latin American universities,” she explains.
