SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, July 22 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The rectors of the Canarian public universities, Rosa Aguilar (La Laguna) and Lluís Serra (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria) met this Friday with the Ministry of Education, Universities, Culture and Sports of the Government of the Canary Islands to request to return to at least the financing of 2013, that is, to recover the 301 million for the two institutions, which was the figure considered in the last contract-programme, compared to the current 244 million.
The unstoppable growth of structural costs to carry out daily activity, maintenance of infrastructures, improvement of management and proper promotion of teaching and research cannot be carried out with funding that does not cover basic and that prevent these centers from growing, the rectors pointed out.
For this reason, Aguilar and Serra have communicated to the head of Education, Manuela de Armas, that in order to create the necessary conditions for the signing of a new program-contract, which would entail the establishment of a five-year budget framework, with funding from change of objectives, an economic injection must first be given that allows us to get out of the current suffocation and recover, at least, the financing that they had ten years ago.
“It is about recovering the loss of financing produced in recent years, both due to the reduction of the specific weight of the universities in the global budget of the ministry and due to the increase in costs”, they indicated in one of the ULL.
This financing would compensate for the structural imbalances of recent years and favor a stable financing framework that would increase the quality of education in the Canary Islands for the coming years, explained the managers.
UNDERSTANDING WITH THE EXECUTIVE
The two rectors pointed out the good atmosphere of the meeting held this Friday, after which there was a media appearance in which the managers of the two institutions participated, Roberto Moreno (University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria) and Juan Manuel Plasencia (University of La Laguna).
One of the conclusions drawn from the meeting is the establishment of a two-way dialogue table with the two university managers and their heads of degrees and teaching staff to establish the training and economic needs of both institutions.
“It is clear that as institutions of higher education we need this vision of the Government of the Canary Islands, and we have agreed on this need”, said the rector of the ULPGC.
For her part, the rector of La Laguna recalled that public universities are “the great social elevator”, so that students of different origins and economic conditions face higher education on equal terms, measured by their talent.
“We want the Ministry to know us better, 45,000 families in this archipelago want classrooms and materials in conditions, but also international postgraduate programs because we live in a global world,” he said.
The two stressed that the program contract is necessary to have medium-long term financing, establishing needs and objectives, but the shock treatment is needed first.
“Public universities are not losing students, on the contrary,” Aguilar and Serra maintained, emphasizing that they have an “imperative need” to renew their teaching staff, which must be increased to meet such obvious social demands as qualifying master’s degrees, such as, for example, Teacher Training.
In this line they highlighted the “multidisciplinarity” of public universities because they are dedicated to addressing all the challenges that the Canary Islands have to be “owners” of the destination.
MORE DEGREES IN OTHER ISLANDS
They also pointed out the opportunity to provide training throughout life, with new more flexible options such as micro-credentials, at the same time that they valued the possibility of more degrees in other islands, so that territories outside the capital receive new students, who It will turn into highly trained professionals who are hooked on these spaces and suppose a population renewal for the smaller islands.
“We are great universities, we do top-notch research and we are totally committed to our territory,” added the rectors.
The manager of the University of La Laguna, Juan Manuel Plasencia, added that one of the ‘workhorses’ is to have a program-contract that allows longer-term programming.
In the period from 2009 to 2013, the planned financing was 1,387 million euros, while now there are 200 million less than what was received at that time.
In fact, it has indicated that in operating expenses it has gone from 1,269 million to 1,166, while in investments there has also been a setback in financing.
In absolute terms, financing has fallen by 14%, 13% less in infrastructure and nearly 81% less in investments.
Plasencia added that in 2018 public universities accounted for 13% of the weight of the Ministry, while in 2022 it has been reduced to 11%. Last year the increase was only 4.4%, which is completely insufficient.
“We are one of the most supervised public administrations. We need to locate ourselves at least in the financing of 2013”, pointed out Roberto Moreno, manager of the ULPGC, that is, 301 million euros, which is 57 million more than the current ones, which are 244 million.
“We cannot improvise budgets, we need to plan and have a horizon of at least five years,” he commented.
