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Diana Morant also asks the Madrid president to “dignify” her title and finance the campuses “as they deserve”.
Common front from the Government against the president of the Madrid’s community, Isabel Diaz Ayuso. The Minister of Universities, Joan Subirats, has supported the protests that took place this Tuesday in the Complutense University against the appointment of the Madrid president as an illustrious student at the faculty where she studied, framing them within the “debate” and the freedom to “express ideas.” In return, she has found it “very wrong” that “a public university makes a person who is degrading the public university illustrious.” Also Diana Morant, Minister of Science, has asked the leader of the PP to “dignify” the title and “finance the Madrid universities as they deserve.”
Both ministers have attacked the lack of funding suffered by Madrid’s public universities in the Community of Madrid. “Madrid is the autonomous community with the lowest level of public university funding and it is encouraging the creation of private universities all day long,” warned Subirats, arguing that “it is a bit contradictory that a person trained at a public university has a university policy that is quite the opposite.
Morant has indicated, for his part, that the Government of Madrid and the communities governed by the PP “are not being co-responsible” in allocating the funds they receive from the State. “The universities also say it”, she has asserted.
The financing
His colleague from the Council of Ministers has said that he is “fully in agreement” with her and has added that “the public universities of the Community of Madrid have been suffering for a long time from being underfinanced in a very clear way and at the same time the Community is promoting of Madrid the presence of private universities”.
“The fact that she [en referencia a Ayuso] has been named today an illustrious alumni of the Faculty of Information Sciences of the Complutense University is a recognition that her studies could be done at a public university, but it does not seem that this is the behavior that she is maintaining in relation to this dignification of public universities”, she has affirmed, although she has recognized that the Complutense “can use their autonomy to do what they want”.
In addition, it has considered that the protests against Ayuso carried out by students and professors in relation to the appointment “are normal, in the sense that universities are a place of debate and contrast.” “As long as people can express their ideas it seems normal to me”, he added.
The Losu does not solve the problem
The project of the Law of Universities (Losu), written by Subirats and currently being processed by the Senate, recognizes the right of students to strike and allows, contrary to the doctrine of the Supreme Court, that public campuses can adopt ideological positions. On the other hand, it does not solve the problem of financing public universities, since the commitment that the State dedicates and1% of GDP to university training. This percentage becomes a target, but not a firm obligation.
The rectors and regional presidents of different political persuasions -for example, the socialist Emiliano García-Page- have denounced the financing problems that the Subirats regulation will cause. Although the minister has only referred to Madrid as the region that finances its universities the worst, he is also Catalonia, according to different studies on university financing. This is, in fact, the main complaint of the Catalan rectors, who hold the central government responsible.
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- Universities
- Complutense University
- Madrid’s community
- supreme court
- Minister council
- PP
- Manuel Castells
- secondary education
- Articles Olga R. Sanmartn
- John Subirats
