The Department of Education, Science and Universities of the Community of Madrid is processing the files for the creation of four new private universities, which would bring the number of centers of this type in the region to seventeen, while the number of public universities remains at six for twenty-eight years.
Sources from the Department headed by Emilio Viciana indicate that the efforts are in the initial phase and that it is a long process, which requires reports from different institutions, before the projects reach the Madrid Assembly.
Three of them correspond to the Felipe II Center for Higher Studies, in Aranjuez, attached to the Complutense University; the Open University of Europe; and the TAI University School of Arts, linked to the Rey Juan Carlos University, as published by Cadena Ser and parliamentary sources have confirmed to EFE.
The executive director of the TAI School, Álvaro Ordóñez, explains that they began the administrative process two years ago and they still have a long way to go until a law is approved in the regional Parliament.
In the last five years, the creation of five private centers was approved, the University College of Financial Studies (Cunef), the Business School and University Center (Esic), the Villanueva International University, the International Business University and the University of Design, Innovation and Technology (Udit).
In addition, the private universities Alfonso X el Sabio operate in the region; Antonio de Nebrija; Camilo José Cela; the European of Madrid; the Francisco de Vitoria; CEU San Pablo; Distance University of Madrid (Udima), and the Pontifical University of Comillas.
Meanwhile, the Community of Madrid continues to have six public universities: the Complutense, the Autonomous, the Polytechnic, the Alcalá, the Carlos III and the Rey Juan Carlos, founded in 1996.
The Más Madrid deputy and professor at the Complutense University Alberto Sánchez considers that the processing of four new private universities is “another attack on the battered public university system” of the Community of Madrid, which is “in technical bankruptcy” and “in a situation of extreme precariousness, with promotion and stabilization plans for teachers paralyzed and, sometimes, without money for heating.
The Madrid region, Sánchez indicates, is home to more than half of the private universities in Spain, which in many cases do not meet the criteria to be considered as such because they do not have the number of doctors, research projects and production. academics that should be required of a higher education center.
The socialist parliamentarian Mar Espinar emphasizes that her group has nothing against the private university, but she does not want there to be “favoritism”, like that usually applied by the Madrid president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, when there is a company behind it, and raises that private centers pay the fees and do not benefit from tax reductions.
“In fact, we have already launched a proposal and that is that all the benefits that these private universities enter into the coffers of the Community of Madrid revert directly to the public universities, which are completely abandoned and left to their own devices,” says Espinar.
“The problem is that the Government of the Community of Madrid is making a clear and unilateral commitment to private education. Mrs. Ayuso is drowning and suffocating the public university, while she is providing all kinds of facilities to private universities,” says the socialist deputy.
From CCOO Madrid, the person responsible for Social Policies and Diversity, Manuel Rodríguez, expresses the union’s “total opposition” to the creation of new private universities, instead of promoting public universities, improving their financing, increasing the number of places and, even launch some more public universities.
Rodríguez charges against “the privatization model of the PP” in the areas of education, health and nursing homes, which represents “a great deal for the companies involved”, but has “a much higher cost for families” in comparison with public resources.
