In 1891 the University of Zulia was founded, an institution located in Maracaibo (Venezuela) which quickly became one of the most recognized and gifted in the Latin American continent.
However, today the panorama is different: bats in the classrooms, deteriorating structures, walls with peeling paint and abandoned spaces. For student leaders, this situation is due to the budget deficit that they have been showing for 15 years..
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According to Edwin Yamarte, an employee and graduate -a group of people who in fact contribute financially to support his alma mater- believes that “Perhaps 15% of the physical plant of the university is fairly suitable for teaching.”
However, these teachers are not paid well either. As learned by the VENEZUELA DOSSIER, receive salaries of less than 30 dollars.
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What would be the solution?
It is clear that overnight there will be no solution to the crisis at the University of Zulia, but there is an alternative on the table: the ‘Venezuela bella’ program, for which 1,000 million euros were made available.
It is an initiative of the government of Nicolás Maduro to invest in different sectors, including universities: “On January 30, rain, shine or lighten, the Venezuela Bella Mission starts in these 60 selected cities to transform, improve and make them beautiful”, expressed the president in the first plenary session of the Federal Council of Government.
But neither the student community nor the teaching staff liked this news, nor did the workers’ union, which led by its leader Nerio Melean declared: “Hopefully they don’t throw away two brushstrokes of paint and say that the money is over.”
The solution for Diana Romero Laroche, dean of the Faculty of Legal and Political Sciences, is to open more postgraduate courses to support the existing ones.
A bleak outlook
Meanwhile, the journalist from DOSSIER VENEZUELA toured the corridors of the university being guided by Yeissel Pérez, who is close to graduating in Political Science -a career in which 45 students previously entered and now only 8-, through the dining room; place that was once the center of many happy memories.
The young woman can’t help but cry as she walks by. The dining room stopped working and today is full of rubble and piled up furniture: “If there was a fair budget, the university would not be like this”assures.
Likewise, it points out that this is the result of a maneuver orchestrated by the regime to demobilize a group.
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VENEZUELA DOSSIER
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