Linkage strategies between universities and the secondary level: challenges to articulate at the beginning of the university

Abstract

Access to university education has emerged as a topic of study that can be questioned from various research perspectives. One of these perspectives, addressed in the following article, focuses on collaboration strategies between university institutions and secondary level institutions. This problem acquires particular relevance in the context of compulsory secondary education. Although recent high school graduates represent only a fraction of new college entrants, this group is of significant importance to universities when designing their admissions policies.

With this context, this article examines this issue from the perspective of university managers, exploring the various strategies used to link with secondary education. The objective is to describe and analyze the different forms of collaboration that the national universities of the Buenos Aires suburbs have developed with secondary education establishments.

The field work is based on interviews carried out with those responsible for admission at each institution, as part of a broader investigation that focuses on the regulatory mechanisms of university admission. A categorization was carried out through the qualitative analysis of the interviews; the former made possible to identify various linkage strategies, ranging from the mere provision of information to collaboration in training and joint research projects.

These categories, which are presented as a result of this article, offer a detailed view of the different ways in which universities get related to secondary education in search of closer and more effective collaboration.