If we compare the attacks suffered by university autonomy in Venezuela throughout its history with those of the last 10 years, we can see that In the last decade, the Venezuelan academy has been the victim of an unprecedented plan of institutional disappearance.
Budgets that barely cover between 1 percent and 20 percent of what was requested, very low salaries, vandalized and deteriorated facilities, closed laboratories, insufficient student benefits (canteen, transportation, scholarships) and, in some cases, physical facilities attacked and Destroyed as in the case of the Universidad de Oriente or the Universidad del Zulia (LUZ), they are the consequences of a policy designed to corner some institutions that have refused to lose their political and administrative independence.
no staff
This induced deterioration has brought dire consequences for higher education in Venezuela. One of them is the professorial diaspora: it is not so much a flight as an expulsion of brains.
It is estimated that in 2022, some 3,500 teachers had abandoned or resigned from their positions to attend offers from Latin American universities and other parts of the world. This figure is equivalent to the closure of certain institutions such as the Central University of Venezuela (UCV), the University of Los Andes (ULA) or LUZ.
The Libertador Experimental Pedagogical University, with seven institutes distributed throughout the country, has seen its student enrollment decrease from 105,000 in 2012 to less than 45,000 students in 2021.
(You may be interested in: Who can benefit from zero enrollment in Colombia?)
The Central University of Venezuela has in 2023 an enrollment of just over 20,000 students, when, historically, it housed nearly 50,000 in its classrooms.
Another effect is the decline in academic research. Traditionally, national universities generated 80 percent of the research produced in the country. Since 2010, the figures show that there has been a continuous reduction in the production of scientific articles.
In 1996, Venezuela contributed 4.7 percent of all study production in Latin America and the Caribbean. It ranked fifth behind Brazil, Mexico, Argentina and Chile. As of July 2023, Venezuela contributes less than 0.6 percent, ranking eighth, behind Chile, Colombia, Peru and Cuba, in addition to the four giants mentioned.
(In addition: After years of decline, the number of university enrollments increased in Colombia).
Regarding patents, it has been years since there have been new records of technological innovations.
Lost his ‘alma mater’
Perhaps the deepest damage has been inflicted on the soul of Venezuelan university students, professors, students, and workers. The academic debate has been diluted by the urgent need to survive in such hostile conditions.
Although it is true that the universities were left empty due to the restrictions of the pandemic and the post-pandemic, it is also true that factors such as the lack of gasoline and the scarcity of resources for transfers, as well as the null biosecurity conditions and the closure of services such as the university dining room helped turn Venezuelan campuses into desolate landscapes.
Despite the initiatives to continue activities remotely, dispersion, lack of motivation and the use of time to search for personal resources for survival reduced university life to a minimum, half guaranteeing teaching activities. This made all research activity, academic discussion and confrontation of ideas disappear.
a new time
Although it is urgent to meet the material needs of the university and university students, that is no excuse for not fulfilling the mission that, legally and morally, corresponds to an autonomous and democratic university: to be the critical conscience of Venezuelan society.
The pandemic and the disruption of new technologies with artificial intelligence as the flagship have left the analog university behind to head towards the 4.0 university. Both phenomena, the first occurring and the second with an accelerated, dizzying and unstoppable development, have disrupted all areas of modern life. Social relations, the world of work, commercial transactions, economic dynamics, geopolitics, communications, marketing and even cultural production have acquired new forms and dynamics.
We must assume the challenge of getting the university out of the immobility it suffers. To revive it, it will be necessary to transform it. The world has changed rapidly and requires a university that responds to these new and confusing times.
The pending challenges
The university of the 21st century develops in a complex and uncertain environment. This forces her to rethink herself to assess whether she is responding to a society with new demands and new questions.
This university of the new times needs strength and freedom for institutional criticism and self-criticism. But this will only be possible under the protection of autonomy. Thus, the first challenge is to preserve this feature.
The second challenge has to do with institutional survival. Even changing the current economic and political model that constrains it, Venezuelan universities must seek alternative sources of financing, which could well be:
– The internationalization of its postgraduate academic offer through online studies.
– The construction of strategic alliances with other universities to offer a portfolio of services, technical assistance and consultancies to public and private, national and international companies.
A third challenge has to do with weighing, critically and self-critically, with fairness and courage, whether the university, as it is now organized, helps to accelerate these processes of change or rather hinders and delays them.
These are new times and everything changes. If the 20th century university was not a replica of the 19th century university, then the 21st century university cannot be thought of from the nostalgia of the 20th century university.
TULIO RAMIREZ
THE CONVERSATION (**)
2023-08-14 00:36:06
#Public #universities #struggle #survive #Venezuela
