The project that the Council of Ministers will approve today allows rectors who are not professors and allows campuses to offer microdegrees so that graduates and professionals can retrain
Today the Council of Ministers will approve the project for a new law on universities, the regulation that will replace the LOU of 2001 and that must adapt Spanish higher education to the challenges of the 21st century. The text of the Organic Law of the University System (LOSU), which the Government hopes Congress and Senate will approve in no more than a year, includes measures to put an end to temporary and precarious university teaching staff, with cronyism and biases of gender in the allocation of places, promotes the transfer of research, gives students the right to strike and shields a minimum public investment of 1% of GDP in 2030.
The norm began to be elaborated by the previous Minister of Universities, Manuel Castells, but it can be said that it is already ‘the Subirats law’. The current holder of the portfolio, in his six months in office, has respected parts of the draft of his predecessor, but has introduced many novelties and has suppressed many aspects, specifically those that generated more friction with rectors and nationalists. He has limited regulation to the basics. It leaves the details for the royal decrees and orders that develop it, but it has also chosen to leave the regulation of such relevant aspects as the specific characteristics and size of the main governing and representative bodies or the profile in the hands of each autonomous community and university. that the candidates for rector and their election must comply with. These are some of the main points:
Fight against precariousness
The teaching career will have as steps the doctor assistant professors, the permanent or permanent professors and the professors. The maximum time on campus must be reduced to less than a quarter, from the current 40% to 8%. The official teaching staff, on the other hand, must rise from 51% of the workforce to 55%. The figure of the substitute teacher is created to replace (for a maximum of three years) the permanent ones on leave or dismissal.
Stability in 10 years
The law seeks to accelerate the renewal of permanent professor positions (53% retire in 8 years) with a career design that will allow going from a predoctoral contract to full or permanent professor in ten years (with six as assistant doctor).
The rule requires a minimum public financing of 1% of GDP by 2030
The End of False Associates
End the law fraud of the false associate professors. A figure for professionals to teach part-time that ended after the crisis with almost full-time teachers and with pyrrhic salaries that many universities support. It will be what was thought. Universities have until December 31, 2024 to call merit competitions that convert the 25,000 associate positions in Spain from temporary to permanent part-time contracts. This change, in addition to stability, will allow them better working conditions, guaranteeing seniority, compensation and salary supplements.
permanent update
Universities will play a central role in updating professional knowledge throughout life. Now only 6% of students are over 30 years old. They will offer recycling microdegrees, flexible, of short duration (weeks or a few months), but with academic validity. For graduates, but also for professionals who certify that they have a sufficient level to receive them. Graduates will have preference to study at their former university.
Rectors 6 years, but not re-elected
The candidate for rector will not have to be a professor. The door is opened to full professors. They only ask for research and teaching merits (how many will be decided by each campus) and experience in an academic management position. His mandate goes from 4 to 6 years, but there will be no re-election. The same mandate conditions will apply to deans or department heads.
25% of students in the Cloister
The new law leaves the determination of the size and the election systems of the main governance bodies (Faculty, Government Council and Social Council) to universities and autonomous communities, except that 25% of the Faculty will be students and 51% teachers, and that in the Governing Council there will be 10% of students and another 10% of technical personnel.
Students will have the right to strike and have a say in the evaluation of teachers and the formulas with which they are examined.
Financing shielded by law
The law establishes that the State and autonomies have to allocate at least 1% of Spanish GDP to the university by 2030, the European average. Today it is 0.7% and in the last 12 years public financing has been reduced by 20%. They will receive at least sufficient funding to cover their basic operating expenses (personnel, current and investments) plus another additional contribution for objectives (teaching or research results).
Training of new teachers
Doctoral assistant professors will receive in their first year of access to university teaching a pedagogical course to learn how to teach.
Attraction of foreign talent
Foreign students who come to study degrees or masters will have a visa for the entire duration of their studies and even for internships two years later. Another novelty are the “distinguished professor” contracts. An instrument that allows the temporary signing of world-renowned scientists.
end of inbreeding
The law wants to end cronyism and inbreeding. 70% of professors work on the campus where they received their doctorate. In the commissions that allocate places and contests there must be a majority of professors from other universities chosen by lottery.
Advantages to break the gap
Women are 55% of university graduates, but only 41% of teachers and 25% of professors. The aim is to break this glass ceiling with measures such as reserving a percentage of places in some contests or giving preference to equal conditions over men in masculinized areas. It also calls for parity in collegiate bodies, research teams and selection commissions.
Boosting research
It provides for a whole battery of measures to promote research and the transfer of innovation to society. It obliges all universities to invest at least 5% of their budget in this area and to reserve at least 15% of teaching positions for researchers.
Sign language
Universities must have a disability care service, a reserve quota for teaching positions and PAS for this group and facilitate teaching in sign language. They must also have a plan for inclusion and non-discrimination based on disability, ethnicity, origin, sex or sexual identity.
Students’ right to strike
If the LOSU is approved in the current terms, the students will have a notable improvement in rights. Your right to academic unemployment will be guaranteed. To stop classes to attend assemblies or protests without anyone being able to prevent it by holding exams or taking reprisals. Of course, the call must be officially notified and decided by the representative body of the students.
Teacher evaluation
The law also mandates universities to guarantee the participation of students in the commissions of the faculty or the institution where the evaluation of teachers is analyzed, where the study plans and agendas are designed and where it is decided how the exams will be and tests students.
Psychological attention
Students must also have a new representative body on all campuses, the Student Council, with a unit that guarantees that they receive attention for their mental and emotional health, with mentoring structures (third or fourth year students guiding the beginning from year to first year) and career guidance teams to help students pursue their interests.
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