The canceled Paulo Freire University (UPF) condemned and denounced the reform approved to Law 89, Law of Autonomy of Higher Education Institutions, executed by the steamroller of Sandinista deputies in the National Assembly.
The board of the house of studies described the modification to the regulations as a “liquidation of university autonomy”, since they affirm that this constitutes “a regression of more than half a century in Nicaraguan education, a deep contradiction with the postulates of the Cordoba reform of 1918 and a mockery and mockery of the blood and sacrifice of Nicaraguans, with whom the university autonomy wrested from the Somocista military dictatorship was forged.
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In a statement dated April 1, the university affirms that the rejection of Ortega’s provision is based on the legal, academic and political effects of the aforementioned norm.
In the first instance, they point out that the first article of the new law eliminates and dissolves the National Council of Rectors, established in article 48 of Law 582 or the General Law of Education, as a representative and plural body of the entire Nicaraguan university community that had the power to define the major policies of higher education “and reserves that power with hegemonic exclusivity to the state and partisan sector that today controls university education in Nicaragua.”
Likewise, the new regulatory norm for higher education reduces the representation of the private sector of higher education to one member, even though it brings together approximately 40% of the university student population in the country, with the offensive aggravation of than that member,” he stresses.
Likewise, they point out that the second article of the new norm, which reforms article 58, subsections 5 and 6 of the previous powers of the National Council of Universities (CNU), eliminates the powers of the university councils of the Universities to approve their study plans. in the undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate areas, “as stated in article 9 of the now-defunct Law 89 of Autonomy and which will now have to be authorized by the CNU.”
Private universities lost legal validity
For Adrián Meza Soza, rector of the canceled university, the Ortega regime “eliminates university autonomy” because “it is ripping the heart of autonomy out of universities, which is the academic power to approve the programs, plans and design of career, degrees and postgraduates».
“Certainly in all the countries the States exercise a quality monitoring function, but they exercise it through specific organisms that are independent, but in Nicaragua the CNU is being authorized to decide which are the study plans with which the students will study. college students,” he explained.
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He added that private universities lost the legal validity of their own diplomas and certifications, “because those diplomas will have no value other than the one to which the CNU endorses them, which reduces the role of universities to simple processors and executors of plans of studies approved by the State”.
“Now there is a new requirement, and that is that if the CNU does not put its certification on the degrees (from private universities), they will not have any value,” Meza stressed. In addition, he said that the rector’s signature will have no value.
«The State showed us that it is on the path of a party that controls all areas of the country’s social and economic life and now it is doing so in the field of education. Anything that the party (FSLN) does not like will have a mechanism that ensures its will, “concluded the rector.
The National Assembly at the service of the dictatorial couple resolved to cancel the legal personality of the Paulo Freire University, accusing it of violating the Law against Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism.
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Regarding its financial statements, the University mentioned that they have never received any comments or observations on its financial statements for the years 2017, 2018 and 2019 from the Department of Registration of Associations of the Ministry of the Interior.
Different opposition organizations have described Ortega as an “enemy of university autonomy” and affirm that this is the new maneuver of the regime to “keep critical thinking and academic freedom subdued.”
