Yesterday there was a symbolic hug at the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters in defense of the public university. For the first time, rectors across the country have called a march for next Tuesday because there is no budget update.
The dean of the Faculty, Sergio Robin, explained to LGPlay that “all channels of dialogue with the (national) Government, which refuses to update the university budget, have been exhausted. “We are operating with a budget for which time has passed and with an inflation index of more than 200, it is absurd to think that we can continue operating with that same budget”
-How is it done, then? How do you close the accounts?
-What is happening now is that with the scarce resources we are receiving we are restricting many things… the possibility of providing our chairs with material as has been done traditionally; all library material; the operation of the computer system – a chair needs a computer, printers, supplies that are necessary for that operation and have become unattainable – our services are restricted to a minimum. In terms of maintenance we are having many difficulties. We have a huge faculty here and we are having a hard time sustaining it in the midst of a dengue epidemic. You will realize that it becomes essential to keep the grass short and fumigated and to provide the chairs and institutes with openings that have mosquito netting, which is also very expensive. Well we are reducing that type of maintenance to a minimum.
-Do we reach the second semester?
-Now the outlook at this moment is very tight; Even with the little we have, we are privileging the things that are most essential, so until now we have been able to cover them but we don’t know for how long. I can’t tell you if in one month or two months; We are receiving the same budget as two years ago and if that is not adjusted it will be impossible to sustain the minimum service of the faculty.
-What do those who may be thinking about your words say that there is a political claim to the Government’s way of administering education?
– Here is an objective fact: if the budget is not enough for the universities to function, they have to close. There is nothing more political than this, because it has to do with the priorities that a government has regarding functions that the State cannot renounce and it is in society to accept that the State completely ignores education or does not do so. make. Therefore, I believe that saying that this mobilization on the 23rd; That everything that universities are doing to make this problem visible is a political issue, it seems to me to be diverting the discussion to another area. But I must also say that there is nothing more political than this because it has to do with a right, which is the right to higher education that is enshrined by law and that the State, notice, even when it has changed its political orientation in the In recent years, this type of irrational adjustment was never considered. One has to think that it is destined to make the public university disappear as an institution.
