Resumen

FUENMAYOR TORO, Luis. Student admission into venezuelan public institutions of higher learning. Rev. Ped [online]. 2002, vol.23, n.68, pp.387-410. ISSN 0798-9792.

The fact that non-university (three and four-year colegios and institutos universitarios) institutions of higher learning conduct admission procedures the same as five-year universities do and that such procedures involve screening tests similar to those applied by these universities, led us to investigate possible discriminating practices upon both lower socioeconomic level students and those graduating from public secondary education institutions, a discrimination pointed out elsewhere (Fuenmayor y Vidal, 2000). Such discrimination might be a result of admission procedures developed from within institutions of higher learning (Fuenmayor y Vidal, 2001). In the current study, data from national admission procedures for the years 1984 and 1997 were used and five institutions (three institutos and two colegios) were studied separately. Results show that in none of the two years studied admission was determined by factors related to socioeconomic level or institution of origin (private or public), while demand satisfaction by these two latter sectors was about the same. When the five institutions were analyzed separately, the same results were achieved. Additionally, it was found that demand for admission is lower in the case of the colegios and that economically favored students tend not to seek admission in these two types of institutions, perhaps because they are being admitted into five-year universities. These results tend to favor the assumption that three and four-year institutos and colegios have become basically low-income student institutions.

Palabras clave : higher education; university admission; colleges; institutes of technology; equity.