Community Colleges: A Model for Latin America? ed. by Claudio de Moura Castro, Norma M. García (review)

Book Reviews 153 tion objectivelyand accurately.But some Mexicanistswho would want to use this book in their class might ask for a deeper and more consistent effort to link these contributions, as well as to justify their representativenessas foreign observations. Scholars might wonder, for example, why include the citizen letters, which are poorly informed, when little else is included that sheds light on foreign views of the breathtaking national political changes characterizing the country in the last two decades. Foreign interpretations of Mexico’s democratic transformation, not just its social and economic ills, are as significant today as the Revolution of 1910 was a century ago. Selections incorporating such perceptions might make this more appealing to social scientists, in addition to historians, who want to include foreign views as supplementary texts in their courses on contemporary Mexico. Other than this caveat,Mexicanists,but especiallyhistorians, will find this a useful addition to their repertoire of possible course assignments. RodericAi Camp Department o f Government ClaremontMcKenna College Community Colleges:A Model for Latin America? Edited by Claudio de Moura Castro and Norma M. Garcia. Washington , DC: Inter-American Development Bank, 2003. 193 p., $24.95. Matriculas abiertas. The foreign visitor to Latin America today cannot help but notice the signs on buses and billboards everywhere: “Now Enrolling.” These advertisements for evening courses in English and computer skills and for fledgling private universities are aimed at the millions of new secondary school graduates, whose degrees have declined in value on the job market. They also target those people already in the workforce who are trying to repositionthemselvesin an increasinglyglobalized economy. Many of these prospective students would benefit from courses more technically specialized than what the English and computer schoolscan offer them, but shorter and more accessible than traditional university programs. Unfortunately, Latin America offers relatively few opportunities for what UNESCO calls “non-university post-secondary” (or “short course”) education , despite the growingneed. The Inter-AmericanDevelopment 154 The Latin Americanist 9 Fall 2005 Bank (IADB) organized a seminar,held at the Harvard Graduate School of Education in September 2000, to discuss the relevance of U.S. experience in the field to the Latin American situation. The papers presented there form the basis of this book. The first two chapters are surveys of “short course” education in the U.S. and in LatinAmerica,respectively.The third chapter is where Castro and Garcia perceptivelyidentify those aspects of the communitycollegethat can and cannotbe exportedto Latin America. They find that while one-to-two year institutions suffer from a lack of prestige vis-A-vis three-to-four year institutions in all the countriesexamined,they enjoy much betterpolitical standing in the United Statesthan they do in LatinAmerica.This standing translates into better access to government resources on the part of the schools and into better opportunities for their graduates .They end the book with practical advice on how a new breed of institutioncould be developedin LatinAmerica, and provide a samplingof case studies. Looking at the U.S., Castro and Garcia find that what community colleges lack in structure and focus, they make up for in flexibility and responsiveness to changes in technology, in the workplaceand in students’needs. For example,the fact that many communitycollegeshave begun to offerremedialcoursesfor high school graduates is seen as very relevant to the Latin American situation. “The number one reason why Latin America should consider adoption of the model” is because “[c]ommunity colleges are proud to work with studentswho need help” (p.11).Here it seems that what the editors seek to export to Latin America is really more of an attitude than an institution. Chapter 2 examines the successes and failures of the Latin American system of post-secondaryvocationaltraining. The editors present data from Argentina showing that a student entering a university program of three or more years only completes, on average, about two years of the program. Still, twice as many Argentines enter university programs as enter training programs lasting two years or less. This apparentlyirrational preferencefor long courses in Latin America is explained by obstacles to both the supply of and the demand for short courses. Public universities tend to be well-connectedpolitically and to receive the lion’s...