This Wednesday, September 21, the Budget Commission integrated with the Treasury of the Chamber of Senators received the rector of the University of the Republic, Rodrigo Arim, in the framework of the analysis of Accountability.
At a time when the Parliamentary Commission was meeting, the University Interunion – made up of the Association of Teachers of the University of the Republic (ADUR), civil servants (AFFUR), students (FEUU), and the Union of Workers Hospital de Clínicas (UTHC)-, surrounded the Annex to the Legislative Power in rejection of the loss of budget and investment capacity.
The president of the UDELAR Teachers’ Association (ADUR), Héctor Cancela, told the press that with their claims they seek to improve study and work conditions, which implies better salaries, because at the University they are the lowest of all public education and, furthermore, it implies more teaching hours”.
For his part, the senator of the Broad Front Daniel Olesker indicated that many speeches are heard about the importance of the educational institution, “but as requested by UDELAR, in the different instances, the government granted in the Budget of the year 2020 only one 6.5% increase of the total requested”.
Olesker added that in the current Rendering of Accounts, which has already been approved in Deputies and is being discussed in the Senate, there is zero weight for UDELAR, except for some projects of the Hospital de Clínicas, which were reassigned in Deputies.
“If we take the evolution of students and the evolution of the budget, UDELAR will lose 7% of purchasing power in the five-year period and enrollment will increase 5%. Per student, there is a loss of purchasing power of 12% of the university budget”, said the legislator.
The parliamentarian also said that “the university budget will fall 7% and the GDP will increase 9%; in other words, the participation of the University in the national wealth will be 16%”.
claims
Through the rector of the University of the Republic, Rodrigo Arim, the Greater House of Tertiary Studies made various proposals: Recovery of salary and teaching hours; scholarship funds (because it is 60% below what is necessary to grant study scholarships); increases for undergraduate and postgraduate research.
He warned that 11 approved races that cannot start and five that are being designed and cannot start are at risk; quotas remain in areas such as medical technology; the Hospital de Clínicas, which has no items, except for very particular areas; and indexation, since to the extent that the government does not adjust the items based on previous inflation, purchasing power (medicines) is lost.
These points represent some 1,200 million pesos of budget increase, but he does not receive anything, Olesker said.
