The rector of the University of La Laguna (ULL), Rosa Aguilar, announced this Wednesday the launch of the Degree in Physical Activity and Sports Sciences for the 2022-2023 academic year, once the National Agency for the Evaluation of Quality and Accreditation has communicated its favorable opinion.
Students with few economic resources will not have to pay the EBAU fee in the Canary Islands
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Aguilar has made this announcement before the session of the Senate dedicated to the annual debate on the state of the University, in which he has reiterated the need for multi-year funding that allows for better endowment and planning of universities “and the imperative renewal of staff , very old” and in need of more incorporations, especially in relation to teaching staff.
In the process of implementing the new degree, the position adopted by the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria has been key, which at all times has expressed its support for the proposal of La Laguna “and has respected our will”, indicated the rector .
One of the issues in which the two universities go hand in hand, the rector continued, is the demand for better financing, since in 2022 the items allocated to both centers in the budget of the Ministry of Education have been reduced to 11.43%.
If this fall had not occurred, the two Canarian universities would have received in 2022, taking into account the general increase of the Ministry, a total of 52 million euros more, Aguilar has added.
“It is as if higher education on the islands were not the responsibility of anyone or, simply, that the value we represent, the engine of social dynamism and economic progress in our communities, is not understood”, he indicated.
The unstoppable growth of structural costs for daily activity, the maintenance of infrastructures, the improvement of management and the adequate promotion of teaching and research “need a greater commitment on the part of the political authorities, who have to do in universities, part of the solution to the long-awaited change in the production model”, Rosa Aguilar underlined.
The volcanic eruption in La Palma has been the other major emergency of 2021, and several research groups worked on the ground and even today there are teams there to help rebuild the island and the citizens themselves.
The university opened a call with a total of 95 grants worth 3,000 euros each, of which 65 were for students from Los Llanos de Aridane, 21 for El Paso and 10 for Tazacorte, for a total value of 285,000 euros.
At this point, the agreement with Banco Santander has been recently renewed, from which a stimulus program linked to the island’s recovery process is derived and 400,000 euros will be allocated to the hiring of 35 young recent graduates from the University of La Laguna to lead different projects in the affected area.
In her speech, the rector mentioned the social projects launched, such as the University Social Curriculum, a platform that encourages active participation in society through the commitment of students to the causes that they believe to be the most just and that are fully connected with the Sustainable Development Goals.
In terms of hiring teachers, there has been a commitment to offer all possible places and for this one of the central tools has been the guidelines for Planning and Provision of Places, which allows prioritizing needs according to objective and public criteria and that, recently, have been established indefinitely, which means a greater speed in the allocation of places, according to Rosa Aguilar.
Thus, more than 175 new positions have been created in the categories of assistant doctor, assistant, associate and assistance associates.
As for the vacancies in the Public Employment Offers, all the accredited teaching staff of the University of La Laguna have been promoted, which has meant a total of 142 promotion vacancies in the categories of University professor, University professor and hired doctor.
The rector also said that the teaching hiring procedures have been streamlined and simplified, achieving a 43% reduction in the average time from the publication of the calls to the moment of formalizing the contracts.
Regarding the management of positions for administration and services staff, the rector recalled that a collaboration agreement has been signed with the General Directorate of Public Function of the Government of the Canary Islands to share substitution lists and the idea is that at the end of the year A total of 233 places have been announced, with the aim of reducing temporary employment to a maximum of 8%.
