Public universities are facing a time of crisis

Venezuela is rapidly losing key science talent. It is estimated that since 2000 at least 1,820 researchers have left the country. These researchers were responsible for about 33% of the country's scientific publications.

Between 1960 and 2000 emigration was rare and the numbers joining the higher education system were greater than those leaving. From 2000 that changed and by 2006 those leaving began to outnumber those joining. However, even in 2000 the number of researchers per million inhabitants in Venezuela was five times less than the global average and 20 times less than for developed countries like Japan, the UK and USA. This is according to UNESCO statistics.

The main autonomous public universities in Venezuela, that is, Central, Simón Bolivar, Los Andes, Zulia, Carabobo and Oriente universities, have traditionally delivered most of the national academic research, accounting for around 80% of the country's scientific publications.

The CSIC – the acronym in Spanish for the Spanish National Research Council – ranked these universities as the top six in science and technology. The QS World University Rankings, which uses broader criteria, ranked three of these universities in Venezuela’s top five.

They are therefore the focus of this article. Industry and academic colleagues claim that collaboration between universities and industry would help resolve the situation. I agree on the essential need for this collaboration.

After much effort, Venezuelan public universities had been transitioning towards a model in which relations between the private sector and government were more intense and fruitful.

Planned systematic initiatives started to blossom, like the collaborations between the universities and the National Oil Company Research Centre on both fundamental science and applied research and development. These were extremely important steps in a country where more than 75% of exports are oil related.

Public universities’ technological and scientific capacities were also growing, but all that ended in around 2000. What happened after that is a critical question. The result is an increasing technological gap in relation to developed countries, particularly in subjects like artificial intelligence, nanotechnologies and robotics.

Funding higher education

With regard to technological research, it is not certain that the funds coming from private companies will be sufficient to maintain engineering departments’ research in different universities throughout Venezuela. But even if it was enough, what happens to other departments? Universities consist of more than engineering disciplines. Fundamental research also needs to be funded.

For instance, how will research in public health be funded? Isn’t that a fundamental role of the government? What about research in the arts? Let’s take ethnomusicology as an example: I believe Venezuelan universities do not receive enough donations to maintain such departments, and if they did, who would expect an independent, respectful research department to exist only on donations?

Full-time professors are committed to teaching, research and external partnerships. In Venezuela, the public universities are tuition-free. This is a quality benefit for the population that even some of the countries with the finest educational systems have not been able to achieve.

How is it possible on a wage of US$40 a month to keep academic staff and deliver a high quality education? The government must face this issue or we are going to lose our best universities and I strongly believe the opposite must occur – for a better future, universities must be constantly improving.

External partnerships should flourish along with the teaching and research. It is an important endeavour which can bring extra funds to the universities, but it cannot be the main source of funding. That would mean the main duties of universities would be neglected.

Nor can such activity be a major source of income for professors. Indeed it is not, and I have heard of professors driving taxis to cover their family needs. Why in heaven would a professor want to do that rather than stay in the classroom or provide specialised services to third parties?

Long-term consequences

Many, maybe most, of the professors who have left Venezuela are now working in institutions in countries where competition for research funds is tough, teaching standards are high and external work is routine. This says a lot about those professors’ skills and Venezuela’s need for them to return.

Venezuelan education is in a desperate state. Beyond the dialectic of its causes and the best model to be used in the universities, departments such as medicine, agronomy and forestry do not exist in private universities. It takes years to build high-quality departments. Therefore, it is obvious that the current departments must be conserved and nurtured. The same goes for science departments like chemistry, physics, mathematics and geology.

Fellow professors and researchers inside and outside of Venezuela have criticised what is happening and acknowledged that there is a lot of room for improvement in our universities.

When we were young students, we were taught by wise professors to be critical and we continue to be so. But the bottom line is that a system that graduated remarkable professionals and delivered fundamental research findings is now falling apart and is not being replaced by a better one. No doubt, this is extremely harmful for the country with short- and long-term consequences.

Strong support from government and more collaboration with industry, private companies and individuals, along with internal restructuring within universities, are imperative to reverse this trend.

José Luis Mogollón is global EOR team leader at Halliburton and a former professor at the Universidad Central de Venezuela.