Integration of sustainable development to higher education: Innovative practices between federal universities and Bank of Brazil with impact over associative and cooperative production

Abstract

Higher education incorporates growing responsibilities in the context of globalization of socio-economic-politico-cultural processes. The movement towards universalization of access to primary education in the planet, with growing registration in upper levels of basic education in differentiated regions of the globe, whereas entry into higher education is accelerated, poses new challenges to public power with a special emphasis in the systems of education, but with a special weight in higher education. Universities and other higher education institutions are given a double challenge. First, universities are faced with the challenge to build up strategies articulating modalities of education to allow a larger entry of students making sure that academic standards are maintained. Open and distance education taking into account the incorporation of new technologies of information and communication are relevant references for this challenge. Second, the emergence of new forms of higher education, such as corporative universities, community and third sector alternatives, electronic modalities, though not necessarily accredited academically, also poses the challenge to universities to rethink and to reposition themselves on new bases to society.