COSTA RICA: Strategic management for social action

One country that has taken civic engagement of its academic community to extremes is Costa Rica. If there's any ivory left at the University of Costa Rica, it would have to be on the keys of an old piano used in music lessons for the kids of San Jose.

Otherwise the university is as open as the barracks of the country's dismissed military. And while private universities are mushrooming across the land, even they have been affected by the national spirit and through specific networks brought into community engagement.

In 1948, Costa Rica famously disbanded its military, citing that it would use the expenditure on security, education and culture instead. In the following year it formulated a new constitution, established a national bank and telecommunications. The university had to train the required human resources.

Two significant developments followed that would mark higher education in Costa Rica. The first was its gradually developing focus on quality over quantity in the years until 1957. Admission exams were introduced, emphasis was placed on the social sciences and all university institutions were gathered on one site in San Pedro.

In the 1970s, more changes were pushed through that would be remarkably far ahead of their time. Besides teaching and research there would be vice-rectors for management, university life (covering student services) and social action. The current holder of the latter position is Maria Pérez Yglesias.

"In the 1970s, we had engagement activities but we found that these were insufficient," Pérez told the conference. "So community work was moved from being a voluntary activity to becoming an obligatory part of the curriculum at 300 hours. We call this 'interchange of knowledge' and it really opened the university to the community."

It did indeed. Children down to age seven came to the university for music classes and professors started to offer continuing education in general and specific vocational courses for professionals. In the long run, this move resulted in a series of special projects such as conferences and fairs, the last one of which, Expo 2011, attracted 140,000 visitors. Even the mentally challenged are addressed with 15-odd special courses per annum.

"We operate closely with other universities in the country on macro programmes that are set up along different [social, geographic and demographic] variables. These can address special needs, indigenous villages and specific territories," Pérez said.

Perhaps more significantly, on paper at least university courses are public events with free access for all: "But all of these are not just extra activities. They also serve an important accounting purpose, with the university showing the general public what it does in more than 1000 projects."

Such activities add to the expenses of the universities but Pérez is adamant these should not be seen as costs but as an investment: "We are a university for the country, for all of Costa Rica."