Mexico City, 9 November 2020.
The Digitalisation in the Future of Higher Education Forum, organised by FIMPES and Santander Universities, in partnership with EmTech, MIT's J-Wel institute and the Harvard School of Education, was held last Friday. 

The Forum's objective was to rethink joint strategies for helping Mexico's education system and its private universities, and to continue developing plans for the post-covid future. 

"Many higher education institutions will have to redesign their current financial, operating and educational models to remain sustainable. Digitalisation and innovation will play an essential role in this," said Arturo Cherbowski, executive head of Santander Universities Mexico. 

The covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the integration of digital technology into education, generating new trends and innovation in the educational model. Demand for adult education will also increase, as they seek to update their skills to increase their professional competitiveness. 

"The health crisis will have consequences for higher education and our institutions need to be ready for these. Our graduates will face a very difficult job market, which will be different to anything we could have imagined before March. The current crisis comes on top of the paradigm shift that we were already seeing in our institutions. We therefore need to align our visions to work together for the future", said Rodrigo Guerra, general secretary of FIMPES.

The seminar was addressed by a number of leading international speakers, including Vijay Kumar, Executive Director of MIT's J-WEL, and Shigeru Miyagawa, Senior Associate Dean at MIT Open Learning. 

Banco Santander and its support of higher education
Banco Santander is firmly committed to progress and inclusive, sustainable growth, with a long-standing dedication to higher education that sets it apart from the world's other financial institutions. With more than €1,800 million invested in academic initiatives since 2002 through Santander Universities and over 430,000 university scholarships and grants awarded since 2005, it has been recognised as the company that invests the most in education worldwide (Varkey/UNESCO, Fortune 500 Report), with agreements in place with 1,000 universities and institutions in 22 countries.

About FIMPES
FIMPES is an association of 112 private higher education institutions, with 800,000 enrolled students. Its mission is to help raise the quality of higher education in the country and its member institutions, through continuous development and improvement. FIMPES is working with its universities to meet the challenges of the present and the fourth industrial revolution, to prepare young professionals who are ready to take on a changing and innovative world.