The echoes of the massive Federal University March last Tuesday still resonate on the local political agenda. On this occasion, the one who spoke was the vice-rector of the University of Buenos Aires, Emiliano Yacobittiwho announced that this Monday the head of the university, Ricardo Gelpiwill meet with the Minister of Human Capital, Sandra Pettovello. In any case, he clarified that the situation “it’s the same” than before and recalled that “The UBA is in an economic emergency”.
According to the leader of the Radical Civic Union, the massive mobilization in the streets of Buenos Aires opened a new expectation for him: that of “a change in attitudes of Javier Milei with respect to the new interlocutor”, in reference to the Secretary of Education, Carlos Torrendell, instead of the Undersecretary of University Policies, Alejandro Alvarezand that both the president and the presidential spokesperson, Manuel Adorni“they have made it clear that public universities must function”.
During an interview with Radio Miterthe former deputy added that “now is the time to sit down and talk and it is good that it is so, we must be aware that the Government has to review the position of freezing the university tax until January 2023 because it has already been shown that it was a cut of almost 80% and that is nothing more than a little increase in the inflation that was experienced.”
Regarding the massive mobilization on Tuesday, Yacobitti emphasized that “society is willing to defend public education” and again pointed to the Libertarian Government ahead of Monday’s meeting. “We need this situation to be recomposed because with the electricity rates that came a 577% more expensiveinflation of 300% plus salary devaluation would be impossible for it to work. We are going to ratify the request for funds which is to maintain the budget we had, neither more nor less than to pay moderately decent salaries.”
Yacobitti brought up an example: “university professors and workers They lost twice the purchasing power of the rest of the State employees: 35% of their income”. Furthermore, he treated it as “nonsense” that the CGT had promoted Tuesday’s march. “People went alone, that is trying to delegitimize what happened instead of “the Government being receptive and changing public attitudes: we have to sit down and talk about the problem,” he advised. “What matters to me is that public universities can continue to have a privileged place in the world, after Whatever the president says, society is going to judge him when the next elections are held, it is not worth answering him.“, complete.
Yacobitti described as “wrong” the Government’s strategy to “try to delegitimize and remove the focus of a just claim: beyond those who are active in political parties, everyone on stage understood that the rule was a march by the public university.” And he concluded about the Executive that “it has to recognize that the adjustment to the universities is a mistake, it did not allow them to function and they are going to review it. The citizen response to the march was shockingthe vast majority were young people with great ideological diversity.
Finally, he defined himself as “reformist” and suggested that the UBA has to be in a “constant process of reforms”. “If you ask any Argentine today they will say that, because of the taxes one pays, the State only offers me a quality university in relation to what is paid,” he concluded.
