LA LAGUNA (TENERIFE), 3 Feb. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Minister of Universities, Joan Subirats, has demanded this Friday that public universities contribute to “local development” outside their lines of internationalization so that “it is useful” to society while at the same time asking to reinforce “in-person” and give value to the figure of the teacher.
In statements to journalists after a visit to the University of La Laguna (ULL), he said that it is “not the same thing” to go to class as to “watch a teacher’s video” at a time when students have a lot of access to “online knowledge”.
For this reason, he believes that universities “will have to catch up” from the training point of view to reinforce the quality of education.
He has also warned that “in eight years 53% of permanent professors will retire” so it is necessary to “rejuvenate” the staff and there, through the LOSU (Organic Law of the University System” work is being done to see how The teaching career is “shortened” and teachers can stabilize their jobs in ten years.
Subirats has also defended the model of micro-credentials as “permanent training” from the University with “short duration” courses that are useful even for people who have not had prior training and can serve to give “new encouragement” to the University and thus contribute to local development.
“We must work more on the idea of reinforcing the role in local development,” he added.
This year the calls will be launched and in 2024 the items will begin to be deployed — the ULL already has open calls through the Ministry of Transport to carry out training in companies in the sector–.
Subirats, who has also met with research staff and student representatives, has assessed that “all” are “oriented” to achieve the same objectives and improve public universities.
In fact, he pointed out that the ULL “has insisted a lot” on having practices for students in order to make them more “employable” regardless of the theoretical knowledge acquired.
SCHOLARSHIPS ORIENTED TO SOCIOECONOMIC CRITERIA
Regarding the scholarships, he pointed out that “they have increased a lot” in recent years to a game of about 2,500 million –with an increase in displacement– and he has been surprised that the students themselves “have insisted on controlling more “the funds, that “public money is not lost” and that it be reinforced for the social sectors “that have it more difficult”.
Along these lines, he has pointed out that both his ministry and that of Education and Social Inclusion have been in dialogue for months “so that they are more redistributive and reach more to those who need them most”, stressing that before they were granted on merit and now it is “for socioeconomic reasons, This is the line of the Government”.
The rector of the ULL, Rosa Aguilar, has defended before the minister the values of the center as an institution “very established in the territory” but also “international and European”, and very involved in helping to solve “the challenges of the Canary Islands”.
In this sense, he commented that the two public universities are going to be the “engine of change” in the archipelago.
