After years of wear and tear, the Madrid university movement has been reactivated again with a momentum that seems unstoppable and, above all, “with a great desire to change things.” If just a few months ago the student, teacher and worker organizations led the days of protest and camps against the genocide in Gaza, now they have once again joined forces to face a challenge that has been looming over their backs for more than a decade: the systematic and calculated attack by successive Popular Party governments against public higher education centers.
Barely a week after knowing the Budget Project proposed by the Government of Isabel Díaz Ayuso for 2025, which contemplates a ridiculous increase of 5.4 million euros for universities suffocated by underfinancing, has been established Platform in Defense of Madrid Public Universities.
The Platform will extend its roots to the rest of the region’s public universities over the next few days
The germ was planted this Wednesday by Complutense Sectionafter a assembly which lasted just over two hours, convened by CGT in the Faculty of Political Sciences and Sociologythe same one that saw Podemos born. Although it is expected that over the next few days this entity extend its roots to the rest of the public universities in the region (Autonomous University of Madrid, Carlos III University, Alcalá de Henares University, Rey Juan Carlos University and Madrid Polytechnic University), in order to configure a organized and transversal movementcapable of articulating the struggle of students, teachers and administrative workers, as well as coordinating with the rest of the movement for public education. What’s more, in some of these centers they have already been weaving networks for weeks.
“There is an offensive at various levels,” Alfonso, professor of Political Science, in charge of moderating the assembly meeting, began by explaining. The “harassment and demolition strategy” which you have referred to includes “several levels” ranging from the administrative-legislative dismantlingthrough the new university law – which has been criticized for its lack of transparency, for legitimizing the repression of university protests and for placing public universities in an unsustainable position, requiring them to self-finance up to 30% of their resources –, to the conscious precariousness which “has been promoted since 2009 with neoliberal austerity policies.”
Alfonso, professor of political science: “There is an offensive at various levels”
According to the data provided by the assembly, ““The accumulated deficit in the Complutense would amount to 64 million euros”while the institution’s budget “has been reduced by 3% in real terms since the crisis.” Therefore, they consider that “the extra patch of 47 million euros” offered this Tuesday to the rectors “does not solve anything.” This has been reported by Mari, a professor in the Department of Applied Economics of the Faculty of Politics.
The economic strangulation affects both personnel and infrastructure: teachers face an enormous work overload, researchers or administrative staff work without resources, and there are faculties that are literally in ruins. A damage that – they argue – is even more bloody when we observe how the expansion of private universities “through the transfer of public land and opaque financing mechanisms” skyrockets.
Almost 50% of the teaching staff in Madrid’s public universities is temporary, a percentage much higher than the maximum 8% allowed by legislation.
Near the 50% of the teaching staff in Madrid’s public universities is temporarya percentage much higher than the maximum 8% allowed by European legislation. At this point, the rectors have already warned that without a significant increase in budgets, many centers will be forced to lay off teachers, reduce grades and increase tuition pricesleaving out those who cannot afford a private education.
That is why for Víctor, another policy worker who has intervened in the assembly, The priority is to prevent the rectorates from acting as “transmission cables” for these cutsencouraging instead autonomous mobilization from the bases. In turn, Rommy, a journalism faculty worker, has insisted on the urgency of “extending and coordinating the movement”taking as an example the struggle already waged by the comrades of Menos Lectivas, organized in Primary and Secondary Education. Precisely “the policy of divide and conquer has facilitated the imposition of these harmful measures,” Héctor, from the Autonomous University, added in the same sense, highlighting the impact that the commercialization of universities has on the social sciences, humanities and arts, relegated under purely utilitarian criteria.
The witness of a broad legacy of mobilizations is collected
The Community of Madrid has historically been the scene of great struggles in defense of the public university. It is impossible to forget when the city streets were filled with voices that denounced the impact that the Bologna Plan would havea project that, under the guise of modernization, introduced the commercial logic that is still denounced today. That battle was a catalyst for the emergence of platforms like Youth Without Futurewhich knew how to channel the frustration of a generation marked by the crisis and cuts.
The Community of Madrid has historically been the scene of great struggles in defense of the public university
Initiatives emerged from their assemblies such as The Uni on the Streeta project that arose with the aim of bringing knowledge to public spaces to reclaim education as one of the most precious common goods and that It was reactivated again on November 28given the current situation. Their commitment will continue this Thursday, December 5, with a symbolic act in front of the Madrid Assembly at 9:30 a.m., a while before the concentration called by CGT, CCOO and UGT at 12:30 p.m.
The challenge is not minor, but if something has become clear in this first meeting, it is that the capacity for gathering and convening of the public university still has a strong and determined heartbeat. The educational community is clear that, as another teacher recalled at the assembly, “this is the time to stand up.”
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