When I was a student, back in the 80s, in the Academic Administration Program (PAA), then the Faculty of Administrative Sciences, we came out with the title of Graduates in Administration, there were no more. General managers, not financial or marketing or production specialists.
I have in my hands, on already yellowed sheets, the Curriculum of the Academic Administration Program. Promotion 1981-1985, which literally says: “The PAA graduate will fulfill the following roles: Manager, Entrepreneur, Advisor, Consultant or Educator-Researcher. For this reason, comprehensive training emphasizes decision-making capacity within the organization; considering it as a system made up of sub-systems that interact dialectically with the factors and elements of their environment ”. “… He is a professional committed to the culture of his people and of his time; He is a social scientist and a technician at the service of the structural transformations and the economic-social development of our country ”.
Years have passed and now I see that many of the courses we take in classrooms are now practically new professions, for example:
- International Logistics, Ports and Customs Management, Tourism Services Administration, Marketing.
Let's talk briefly about the division of labor. As you all know, it is about specializing the workforce in order to achieve efficiency, it creates more streamlined activities that can be learned quickly. The profession is a specialized activity of work within society. The division of labor seeks to achieve greater productivity. Very well, but so much division divides man himself, with a narrow function it makes him a mere particle of the system.
We know that Administration is a social science, however certain universities have turned it into an exact science (?):
- -Business Engineering.-Administrative Engineering.
But what really catches my attention and worries me are the following careers:
- -Administration and Finance.-Administration and Marketing.-Administration and Agribusiness.-Administration and Human Resources.-Accounting and Administration.-Administration and International Business.-Administration and Management.
What can this situation be called? Graduates in Administration, specialist in xxxx? Two professions in one? How far will they continue to subdivide the Administration? Is it really positive, just because of the fashion of globalization or because of the constant division that the labor factor suffers? Dismembering the Administration only makes the graduates come out as specialists, with a partial vision of the science of Management.
You will say that I am a romantic, a naive, that I have no vision, that I have not realized that times change, that it is no longer like before, that now being a generalist is knowing very little or knowing nothing. For this reason, I want to start a debate, so that they can tell me whether the training of "specialist graduates of a branch of the Administration" is good or bad. Surely someone will tell me what about Engineering ?, since there are degrees in Civil Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Systems Engineering, Textile Engineering, Economic Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Mechatronic Engineering, Naval Engineering, Mining Engineering, Engineering Oil, etc., etc. It seems to me that the comparison does not fit, since engineering deals with the transformation of natural resources and the Administration deals with organizations.
We know that companies today are increasingly desperate for efficiency and effectiveness, reducing costs and increasing profits, even worse with globalization and hyper-competitiveness. In highly specialized consumer societies like ours, where the environment and technology make products and services change from one day to the next, due to the work and grace of the large transnational corporations, they will then say yes, that it is okay for universities train this type of professionals. Total, the student and / or graduate will go to work at the company.
The fractionation to which the Administration has arrived, one of the most complete sciences that exist, very personally, does not make sense. This is where the participation of a true Professional Association of Administrators must come in, raising its voice, making itself respected and bringing together all specialties, as the College of Engineers currently does. In any case, for those who wish to specialize, there are postgraduate courses or specialization courses.
As a professor told me: " the Administration is easy to study, but difficult to apply ", if I already know that this expression is irrelevant, I simply wanted to make it known to you.
The current situation of the University is not the best. Besides that they have appeared as mushrooms, because they are a good business and train professionals in series, under the pretext of avoiding politicization in the students they have canceled many humanities courses and others, worse still, have canceled the theses for graduation purposes, it is enough to mere refresher courses, after a strong payment that fattens the university coffers. The graduate, now in the internet age, does not read books, he has less in mind to own his private library, he does not want to know anything about political or social reality, he is bored, all he wants is to work, earn a lot of money, buy what latest fashion and not to investigate, not to create, only to copy.
As things are going, one of the conclusions I reach is that the professional that companies need, especially large corporations, must have the following requirements: technocrat, utility, robotized, one more piece of gear, is this the specialist who Do our Latin American countries need a narrow vision of the Administration? And I go further away from social-economic reality, without values or social sensitivity? Unfortunately, the universities lend themselves to it, nobody controls them, under the pretext of autonomy, rather they are allies of the business unions.
As a suggestion and so that they do not say that I am so negative, if the current state of affairs continues, the ideal is that rigorous specialization should be combined with wide horizons, with the possession of multifaceted knowledge and skills, where the individual, that is to say the worker, become an active, valuable and creative personality, both in the company in which you work and for the society in which you live.
