Mimesis and inadequacy of the education-training systems in the developing countries

Abstract

The aim of this article, which is part of a wider research project, is to point out the existing tendency in the developing countries to adopt inadequate education-training systems regarding their own demands. Such a tendency shows either the «weight» of the systems inherited from the period of colonial domination or multiple extroversion and mimesis processes. So, the author carried out an analysis of the development of the education-training systems most characteristic aspects during the sixties and seventies in all the developed and developing countries, as well as in the main developing regions, i.e. Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Arab Countries. This analysis focuses on the gross rates of scholarity, according to the different education levels; the pupils' distribution through the different education levels, specially through the different types of secondary education; the students' distribution through the different university levels and areas of study; the foreign students according to enrollment countries and native countries; the public expenses with education per inhabitant and their percentage from the GNP (gross national product), as well as their distribution, according to the different education levels; the rentability of the investment in education, according to the different education levels and developing regions. By connecting his empirical analysis with the role played by the transnational
enterprises within the framework of both the employment market regarding qualified personnel and the education-training systems in these countries, the Author emphasizes the fact that, on the horizon of the 80s, only one (1) in every six (6) native young people will be able to get a real job. Finally, he concludes that «in general, the education-training systems, in the developing countries seem to be not only inadequate and extrovert, but also, from a social standpoint, to take advantage rather inefficaciously from their available and fairly scarce resources, by concentrating them in the universities.»