Demographic context framework of higher education in educational network of south region UNAH

Abstract

This article arises within the research project about “Supply and Demand of Higher Education in Honduras” made by the National Autonomous University of Honduras (UNAH), and attempts to study tertiary education to contribute to a better balance between supply and demand by means of an integrated system of value and supply of higher education. Specifically, it attempts to study the value chain consisting of benefactor-claimer-user of higher education as the source of value, which means a value flow in the form of demand, coming from the one who demands (final or intermediate), to the one who offers, or supplies. This flow or chain of demand manifests itself by the number of graduate petitions, and by research investigation results and money parallel to the flow of value, flowing backwards (in contrast to the flow of supply). This supply chain, is a forwards flow, in the form of an offer, from the inputs of students and research proposals, such as the income to the supply source, to the one who demands or final/intermediate benefactor.

Due to its complexity, this research is being developed in several stages and within the first, in the context of the socioeconomic environment, lies the demographic context of higher education in a national scale, and on a regional scale operation in nine regions through regional education networks of the UNAH. This research work constitutes the demographic context of UNAH’s South Region Educational Network, which covers the departments of Choluteca and Valle and whose central headquarters is the Pacific Coast University Center (CURLP), in the city of Choluteca. It covers the study of size and growth rate of population, age and gender structure, behavior of main demographic variables such as fertility, mortality, and migration (internal and international), spatial distribution and several aspects of population already in age able to study higher education in the south region.

The population in the south region continues to grow at an accelerated rate, having a young structure, levels of fertility and mortality are high, in comparison to other regions of the country and internal and international migration keeps making this a rather ejector region. On population in age able to receive higher education, this continues to grow, especially in rural areas, however, the largest concentration of these areas are in the most populated ones, which are also the ones more urbanized.