The administrative Vice-Rector of the University of Carabobo (UC), José Ángel Ferreira, denounced that three of the four areas of university autonomy, contemplated in the current Law on Universities, have been flagrantly violated.
Correspondent lapatilla.com
Mr. Ferreira specified that article 9 of the current Law on Universities establishes four areas of autonomy: financial, organizational, administrative and academic.
He explained that in terms of finances, the budget law has not been complied with in more than three years, and with the arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic the situation worsened.
“Organizational autonomy has to do with our own internal rules, things as elementary as deciding individual and collective vacations no longer exist. We have a year under the ‘Patria’ platform that took away our power over payroll, which creates many problems because there are many people who do not get paid fortnight after fortnight, and ‘retroactive compensation’ is over,” he added.
Mr. Ferreira indicated that four months ago they imposed the Onapre instruction, which violates the collective agreement and, therefore, the National Constitution. “The bonus does not arrive. These decisions used to be ours, because they were part of the organizational autonomy, and that is over,” he stressed.
In addition to this, he pointed out that organizational autonomy also includes items like healthcare matters, but for five years they have not had HCM services (health insurance) and neither do they have personal accident, funeral, or pharmacy support insurance policies.
He explained that the administrative autonomy is also violated. It contemplates what is related to the election of the authorities. “I completed the four years of my term and I have spent nine years in office, during which time there have been no elections because they took away the administrative autonomy that materialized in that act of sovereignty, and they also took it away from us,” he said.
The administrative Vice-rector assured that financial, organizational and administrative autonomy has been affected and the only thing left is academic autonomy. “Fortunately, as we have it, we can give classes both face-to-face and remotely, forums and congresses are held and we can still carry out research, which allows us to still be competitive to position ourselves in the rankings of Latin America.”
In his opinion, what is happening is a systemic problem for the purposes of university autonomy, for which he commented they will have to analyze how to carry out a synergistic process “that allows saving the Venezuelan university from those who want to destroy it.”