The “final blow” to the Central American University (UCA), to eliminate it from the constitutional 6%, was completed on April 7 when the rectors that make up the CNU approved “unanimously” the integration of the Antonio de Valdivieso International University (UNIAV) as the representation of the private sector in that entity.
According to a post on the CNU Facebook page, the integration of the UNIAV occurs in “compliance with Law No. 1114, Law reforming Law 582, General Education Law and reforming Law 89, Law of autonomy of higher education institutions” that in its article 56, point 3 empowers the CNU to designate a private university as a member.
As the UCA is left out of the governing body, it therefore loses the annual budget that was assigned to it and that was reduced to its minimum until 2022. Experts have pointed out that this decision by the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo is due to the fact that This university was the epicenter of the social protests of April 2018 due to the fire in Indio Maíz and the social security reforms.
Related news: Ernesto Medina on reform of the CNU: “It returns us to the darkest stage of the universities in Somocism”
“In session No. 10-2022, the CNU member authorities unanimously approved the incorporation of the Antonio de Valdivieso International University (UNIAV) to the National Council of Universities,” the CNU said on the social network. The session where UNIAV was incorporated into the governing body was held at the central headquarters of said university in the department of Rivas.
Now the CNU was made up of the public universities, the confiscated and nationalized universities, and the UNIAV.
The education expert, former rector of the American University (UAM) and former president of the National Council of Universities (CNU), Ernesto Medina, considers that the reform, which modifies the CNU, is a return to the “darkest stage of the universities under Somocism before the National University had autonomy in 1958».
Regarding the elimination of the 6% UCA, he assured that “the most important university in Nicaragua is being destroyed because the national universities, for a long time, have become totally irrelevant, the politicization of the universities and authorities, which are simple transmitters of the guidelines that come from above have destroyed the state universities».
Medina explained that the reform to Law 89 is not for strengthening higher education and that, rather, we should be concerned about this new status given to the CNU because nothing will be strengthened if a new bureaucratic apparatus of faithful is being created. and loyal to the Government to accommodate the budget of 6% that would come to reduce the departure to the universities.
