Re-opening a debate that seemed over: the birth of quality free public education has a couple of points that cannot be ignored.
First, the suicide in December 1871 of the student Roberto Sánchez, a man from San Juan who studied law and was buried in the Recoleta cemetery. He had denied in a letter, before taking his own life, that the teachers at that time “were paid to prepare for exams”. His death was a sign of birth move on December 13, which preceded the reform of the university, which ended a few years later, in Córdoba. But Sánchez’s complaint was the spark that ignited the prairie.
And we cannot ignore the de-taxation of the public university, which was undertaken in short order of Peronism, fifty years later.
In almost all advanced European countries, university education is free. Germany is a good example, and the president likes to call it that. In Germany, public universities are free. And contrary to what the president points out, it is not “self-funded.” It is funded by the State, and those who are exceptional get even more money (reflection of excellence). where I studied, one of the best universities in Germany (where Konrad Adenauer received John F. Kennedy), is located under the UBA in the international ranking “. adjustment”), but more money better, moreover, for its excellence that is recognized throughout the world.
Exactly the opposite of what the Argentine government is proposing today, which is committed to destroying science and the public university, because they are fields of training and knowledge, and many of the it is maintained but taken forward, such as the dismantling of gender policies (“public”), based on violence and (public) ignorance, which characterize many poor countries in the region. But not to the countries of Europe, which the president usually reports. In Denmark, education is public and of quality. And it is not transferable. No one wants scientists to “finance themselves” because it is believed that the State values their training as a strategic capital. They are called knowledge societies for that reason. Argentina’s big problem is the brain drain to European countries. This leakage will worsen if Conicet and public universities, which are among the best in the world, are dismantled.
If one sees that Black Rock, as Emanuel Gibonilli, professor of philosophy of science at the UBA, denies, finances stores where climate change is denied and that these forums financed by speculative money that makes big business in our countries destroying the environment, the circle (of the attack on the public university) begins to close.
It’s not just about “defunding” like any other company is defunded.
It is no coincidence that vulture money like Elliot, that is, the Republican right, typical of the financial circles (flat earth, anti-sex “ideology”, etc.) has been the one department that has funded the current president’s campaign (liberal They are democrats libertarians, on the other hand, the conservative Republican sectors, whose axis is in the financial sector, which supports Milei). Whether the president knows it or not, the attack on the public university is part of a regional funding strategy like Black Rock and others to dismantle the State in terms of resources . It happened before in Bolivia. Musk was the one who said two years ago (about lithium) “whatever the cost we get from Bolivia. The biggest barrier is knowledge. And knowledge is created in the public university. And Black Rock knows it.
The misrepresentation of the word “free” is not new. It begins with the “secular or free” debate in the 1960s, when the private university as we know it today was born, in the Frondizi era. The misuse of the word freedom then contributes to the misuse of the word freedom now. Today there seems to be the same confusion as well, where the private university is “free”.
But if we analyze the concepts well, we will understand that it is the other side, that also in a theoretical way the very concept of “university” accepts what formerly public, a public university was synonymous with a national one. national” without the need to clarify that it was public (a requirement for Supreme Court judges, for example). If we think about the concept, we come to the conclusion that there is a contradiction in the expression “private university” .And he says that “public university” is useless (that is why it was not clarified before) because the university, as a place for creating knowledge, is public (without exclusion) by explain.
The university, to the extent that it builds universal knowledge, aims, in turn, for the whole “Universe” to be represented in its classes (so the word “university”), public by definition. Can’t be. Then the debate, as in secular or free times, would be different: if it were not a mistake to assign a single concept of “university” to universities that are not “universal” places ”, which do not allow for “universal” access (they do not represent a “universe”) and produce private knowledge, for very few (interest) and not beneficial to the collective (all- general and university). They may not be universities, in the true sense of the term. They are something else. Institutions, associations, foundations. But not “university.” The modern, liberal university sought to make its university experience a catalyst for social progress. This is why purpose lighting plays such an important role. The secular or free debate was a poorly planned debate, where the word “freedom” was badly damaged, as it happens now publicly.
Mario Bunge smiled, in 2001, when they gave him the cause honoris of the UCES. “A university of ‘business’ and social sciences, isn’t that much?” the epistemologist asked himself with a smile. I had gone with my aunt Gladys, who had been Jauretche’s secretary, and Sebreli, to that event at the UCES. I still remember the ironic smile of Bunge, an epistemologist and professor in Canada, when he received that doctorate. Like ESEADE, which provided Milei. Bunge was a great defender of the public university. He was not a Peronist. And it wasn’t a left wing. But he was a true epistemologist.
