The Minister of Science, Innovation and Universities, Diana Morant, sent a pulse to the councilors of the Popular Party yesterday, as she wants to force them to accept an agreement to expand university enrollments, with state funding, in exchange for their governments also commit to creating jobs and putting an end to job insecurity.
With the support of the university presidents, who in a previous meeting had described the proposal as “powerful”, he presented a public university employment financing program of 900 million over six years to pay for 3,400 doctoral assistant professor positions . But conditional on the expansion of the workforce by the autonomous communities, which are the ones that have the competence in universities. It is the autonomous governments that decide what to allocate to public campuses from their budgets.
The ministry’s offer, the second in six months, aims to unblock compliance with the organic law of the University System (LOSU), which contains two obligations: on the one hand, to eliminate the job insecurity that afflicts the university (49% of temporary employment) and, on the other hand, increase funding to these institutions, up to 1% of GDP.
This is the part that some councilors criticized yesterday, all from PP governments, and recalled that the law was voted without political consensus and calling the plan “disrespectful” to their powers by a “you invite and I I pay”. In essence, they agree with the ministry to alleviate the situation of the university, promote the stability of the templates, allow young people to become holders at an early age, put an end to “false associates” and allow the relief of templates But the injection of the State does not seem sufficient to them, nor do they consider that the Central Government is competent to condition their budgets, neither now nor in the future.
This was expressed, for example, by the councilor of the Xunta or the Botanic, as well as the councilor of Castile and Leon, Rocío Lucas, who said that “it is necessary for the ministry to finance one hundred percent during the transitional period the new hiring of assistant to a doctor who imposes a law that was approved without consensus”, and added that this cost “will remain in the university systems in a structural way” at the expense of the communities.
Despite these criticisms, Morant did not give in and maintained the co-financing requirement until the end, taking into account that those who do not accept it will be left without help for a measure that must be fulfilled by law. The autonomies, including the most belligerent (Madrid, Andalusia and Valencia), did not leave the table. As the minister said when the meeting ended, “some have clearly expressed that they do enter and others have said that they will discuss it with their governments, but I would dare to say that there is none that he closed the door”.
For this reason, the ministry leaves a month for deliberations. And it is open to holding bilateral meetings, as Cantabria has already requested, which the ministry’s figures do not match, or Extremadura, which incorporates the request that the money does not go to the universities, but to the community.
In addition, the Rectors’ Conference published a note in the afternoon calling for the agreement. Among those that have already agreed are Asturias, Castilla-La Mancha, Navarre and the Basque Country, which should agree this week past For its part, Catalonia was inclined to do so.
The financing of the 3,400 doctoral assistant professor positions is planned from the 2024-2025 academic year and during the six-year duration of this type of contract the investment is 150 million euros per year, which this year has been achieved , despite extended budgets. The minister did not specify how much the autonomous communities should contribute.
In a first proposal from the central government, 4,200 teachers were set for all universities, but ministry sources had assured that they would finance two-thirds, which would raise this figure to 5,100 places. In any case, the 3,400 places committed by the central government are equivalent to twice the number of places in an ordinary call for assistant professors at public universities.
