Protesters demand more resources for public universities

Several thousand higher education students, teachers and administrative personnel plus trade unionists recently staged marches in Colombia’s largest cities asking for more resources for public universities, better conditions for student loans and a doubling of the budget of Colciencias, the government agency charged with guiding and financing science, technology and innovation.

Colombia is the most populated South American country after Brazil and many of its public universities have problems in paying teachers and keeping their premises in good shape.

Mass protests in more than 20 Colombian cities burst forth on 10 October, with hundreds of thousands of participants dressed as mummies, skeletons and skulls with banners demanding resources to “revive” the country’s 32 public universities. Further mass protests followed on 8 November.

Many students from Colombia’s 28 private university students have also joined the fray. César Vargas, student representative of Universidad de los Andes, explained that there are also important issues in private universities, including middle-class students who cannot afford tuition fees amounting to 20 minimum salaries.

It was the first public protest for Colombia’s right-wing President Iván Duque, who took office in August. Also, several universities are on strike.

The public demos and faculty takeovers carried on after higher education students and teachers walked away from the negotiating table with the government on 6 November, when the education vice-minister told them the government would not yield because resources were short.

The claimants said they would only resume negotiations if President Duque would meet with them, something that has not happened since the protests started a month ago.

Public universities are underfunded

At the heart of the matter is the cumulative underfunding of Colombia’s 32 public universities, which students put at US$127 million for public universities and another US$51 million for higher education technical and technological institutions.

According to Alvaro Viña, financial and administrative manager of the leading public Universidad Nacional de Colombia, the Colombian higher education sector is suffering from “structural underfunding” (national daily El Tiempo, 10 October 2018), arising from the fact that the 1992 higher education law linked university financing to the increase in the consumer index, which has proven totally insufficient to meet unforeseen needs such as investing in information technology.

The resulting financial shortfall was compounded by a 2002 decree that ruled that teachers’ salaries would increase in proportion to their titles and academic publications. According to the Ministry of National Education, the number of teachers with PhDs has increased eightfold in the past 10 years and so has the teachers’ wage budget.

Public higher education institutions are asking for a total of US$14.3 million in 2019 plus payment of a “historic debt” of US$10 million for infrastructure and quality improvement.

Though much increased, the monies for education allocated by the national budget approved by Congress last month fall short of the target set by protesters. A total of US$13.1 million out of the US$259 billion national budget for 2019 will go to public universities, around US$1.3 million more than last year.

Education Minister María Victoria Angulo said that it was not possible to cancel the “historic debt” now but promised to include it in the 2020 budget and to provide gradual allotments in the coming years, “giving more resources not only for the core funding of universities but also for investment”.

Free student loans

Students also want government agency ICETEX to provide interest-free loans to higher education students and to cancel the debt of the 400,000 beneficiaries of Ser Pilo Paga, an ICETEX programme for low-income academic achievers, the education flagship of former president Juan Manuel Santos.

A few weeks ago, President Duque announced the revamping of the Ser Pilo Paga programme in order to extend free tuition benefits to more universities and get private universities to contribute financially. The current government says that Pilo Paga has gone to only 40,000 students, the great majority of whom ended up in five or six private universities.

However, thousands of youngsters from far-flung corners of Colombia who would not even have dreamt of obtaining a university education are now studying in elite universities thanks to Pilo Paga. At the much renowned Universidad de los Andes, a third of last year’s admissions went to Pilo Paga holders.

“Increasing [higher education] coverage requires that we include more public universities in a free education programme and tell private universities to also contribute,” the president said. The details of the Pilo Pago replacement programme will be announced this month.