Madrid, Mar 9 (EFE).- The Plenary Session of Congress will debate and vote on Thursday the third university reform in democracy, a law that seeks to tackle the worrying job insecurity of the system and raise the allocated budget, going from the current 0.7 to 1 % of GDP between now and 2030.
The Organic Law of the University System (LOSU), whose approval will require an absolute majority of the chamber due to its organic nature, has circumvented the vetoes raised by PP, Vox and Junts per Catalunya and has incorporated several amendments during its processing.
Among them, the one referring to one of the most sensitive issues, that of the financing of the universities, which has irritated autonomies of different political color since they are the competent ones and ultimately the ones that must assume the budgetary commitment.
77% of this financing comes from the autonomous administrations, 6% from the State and the rest from the collection of funds made by the higher education institutions themselves.
Thus, one of the modifications introduced in the text eliminates the idea that communities and the State had to agree on a plan to reach the aforementioned 1% GDP and now only states that they “share” said budget objective.
Main points of the reform
Other changes introduced during these months of parliamentary processing are the following:
.- The regional evaluation agencies reinforce their functions and eliminate the capacity that the bill grants to the General Conference of University Policy (Ministry and communities) to establish maximum limits of public prices, so that they can only be maintained or decrease, never increase.
.- It will be guaranteed that the halls of residence attached to public universities cannot segregate by sex and, in this way, avoid sexist behaviors such as those of the Elías Ahuja hall of residence, in Madrid. In practice, this implies losing tax benefits and other cultural and sporting advantages.
.- The university cloisters, in addition to approving the statutes and designing university policies, will be able to “analyze and debate other issues of special importance” -which some interpret as the loss of the ideological neutrality of the University-.
.- The promotion of the communities’ own language will not be limited to dissemination and learning, but rather “mainly” to its use as a language of academic transmission.
.- To run for rector it will not be essential to be a professor, it will suffice to be a workforce as long as the requirements of having three six-year research periods, three five-year teaching periods and four years of university management experience in a one-person position are met.
.- People without a university degree but who prove work experience with a level of competence equivalent to university education, will be able to access permanent university education through a procedure for recognition of professional experience.
.- The Government must submit the bill for the Statute of Teaching and Research Personnel (PDI) within a period of six months, instead of one year.
.- A new transitory provision has been added in relation to the calls for competitions for the coverage of positions for teaching and research staff officially published before December 31, 2023, so that these may now be governed by the regulations in force prior to the LOSU.
Minister Joan Subirats’ Law replaces the Organic Law on Universities (LOU), approved 20 years ago by the Government of José María Aznar.