The Council of Ministers will approve tomorrow a law that seeks to harden the minimum standards that will be required throughout the country so that independent societies can establish a new university.
President Pedro Sanchez has announced this legal change in a law before the main representatives of the Spanish University community held today at the United Nations headquarters. There he emphasized that the main goal of reform is to prevent some societies, which Madrid cited their competencies, “intentionally weak”, the public system of higher education and mandate as new universities, which are more than “academies” or even “private beach bars”.
Sanchez provides that the cabinet will approve a standard on Tuesday, which includes three types of measures to ensure that in Spain, universities can only be established if the projects are compatible with the minimum quality and excellence.
The first change aims to prevent societies in the future, which Madrid cited again, which allows the establishment of universities for negative reports on the General Conference on the University’s policy, which is the Coordination Authority in higher education matters that combine representatives of the Ministry of Science and Self -Independence. The president said that in some cases it is ignored, although they indicate that applicants provide research levels or a variety of insufficient grades.
It is not possible to open a new university campus that does not have a positive report from the National Agency Technicians for Quality and Accreditation (ANECA)
This National Coordination Authority report is mandatory today (forced to request this), but not binding (councils do not have to follow their conclusions or indicators). With tomorrow’s reform, autonomy will not be able to delegate universities that do not exceed a “evaluation report” implemented by the National Quality Assessment Agency (ANCA) or its independent equivalent. Sanchez said that this new report will not only be mandatory, but also “binding” and “guaranteeing quality standards” for the project.
This is the second pillar of the new standard. It will harden the minimum standards for the authorization to open the university. Among the new requirements is a guarantee of at least 4,500 students in the first five years of employment, to obtain guaranteed economic hardness, and they have a presentation for students at least 10 % of these registered, and that the promoters of the institution are “administrative experience” in higher education that meet the minimum demands in the goals and investments in the research.
As a third procedure, The Norm aims to end “online” projects that hide universities without being. “All universities online” will be considered a personality and a scope of national action, so “they can only be allowed with the approval of public courts.”
“Blessed” strategy
The President said that the government decided to act because there were societies that launched a “deliberate” strategy to privatize the university public order, which threatens to end equal opportunities and the “social elevator” that was Spanish public universities for a period of four or five decades. He stated that since 1998, when the last general campus was established, 26 private universities have been established, and that there were ten other and nine licenses pending the request for the application.
Sanchez said that this strategy is “financial drowning” for public universities and “expanding a red carpet for these academies or private educational beach bars”, which believes that this autonomy “seeks to replace equality with titles and bank account.” First, they explained that they cut the financing, which causes a decrease in its quality, and when the decrease becomes clear, they suggest as a solution to privatize public service. The CEO, who said that the Madrid community has reduced by 30 % of the sixth year -old financing since 2016 and that Andalusia “has been frozen for a period of six years” although its government has increased the transfer of funds to autonomy by 50 %.
The Popular Party’s reaction to the declaration was reminding that both Pedro Sanchez and four of its ministers, internal affairs, foreign affairs, integration, social security, industry and tourism studied and obtained their university titles and some graduate study courses and allocation on private campus.
