La Gaceta, Official Gazette, number 70 of April 24, 2023, will be a publication remembered by students from the University of Northern Nicaragua (UNN), as the most bitter in their university lives, since the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega registered in her, the cancellation of the legal personality of this alma mater, thus consummating a new arbitrariness of the regime.
“Surely they are going to contaminate the UNN academic curriculum with Sandinismo, contrary to more than two decades of university teaching with a critical and eminently human spirit,” said Jessica, a founding student of this alma mater and today a final year student at her university. Second major on this campus.
Another student, known as “Beto”, assured that he would be withdrawing his registration this week. “I am not going to feed those thieves, they are going to rob the university buildings, that makes me mad, but someday justice will be done with these red and black criminals,” he criticized upon hearing the news.
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The authorities of the Universidad del Norte de Nicaragua issued a statement, on social networks, calling for calm on teachers and students. «This measure has taken us by surprise., We are in function of finding out with the authorities what is happening and obtain a response as an institution,” reads the publication released in Matagalpa.
Uncertainty in the enclosures
According to the institution, academic activities will continue their normal course until there is new information about it. Meanwhile, the UNN educational community, both in Matagalpa, as well as in Ocotal, Estelí and Jinotega (the other campuses in the north of the country) said they were concerned about their future.
«I am in my first year of accounting and this worries me because I do not know if they are going to close it. I am going to lose what I have invested and no one is going to replace it”, complained Daniel, from Matagalpa.
Andrés, another student, this one from psychology in Jinotega, stated that he does not know what to do. “My mom tells me to wait for me, to see if they solve it quickly, but there are no more private universities left, they have all been stolen by the government,” he pointed out.
Orteguismo: “the university lacks plans”
In La Gaceta, the dictatorship, through the Ministry of the Interior (Migob), accuses the UNN of allegedly not having approved study plans by the National Council of Universities (CNU) and the National Council for Evaluation and Accreditation (CNEA).
According to the authorities, the institution lacks research plans and the necessary infrastructure for learning, lacks enrollment requirements, career offers not authorized by the CNU, and accuses the university campus of falsifying information before the CNU and CNEA.
For this report, they tried to obtain the position of the rectory of this Alma Mater in Matagalpa, but they preferred not to comment on anything beyond the statement they published on social networks. The dictatorship ordered the universities affected by this latest arbitrariness to “deliver in an expeditious and orderly manner to the CNU the information on each student, teacher, careers, study plans, and enrollment database.”
The universities canceled this Monday were the Metropolitan University (UNIMET) and the Adventist University of Nicaragua (UNADENIC), adding some 22 higher education institutions throughout the country that were confiscated.
Fewer and fewer university students
The UNN has a presence in Jinotega, Matagalpa, Estelí, Nueva Segovia and Madriz, the enrollment exceeds three thousand students, as confirmed by a source close to this study center,
In the department of Jinotega alone, they attended some five hundred students, since this university also had a presence in San Sebastián de Yalí, Cuá, Wiwili and Santa María de Pantasma, it was the only university that served the rural area of this department.
As confirmed by the source, before the year 2018 the enrollment exceeded five thousand students, but as a result of the repression against the youth, many university students fled for fear of being imprisoned and since then enrollment has been lower.
Authorities will deliver
According to a source from the UNN board of directors, they are preparing to receive what is supposed to be a commission to hand over their facilities and administration, academic records and all financial assets and fixed assets. This process will begin and will last about fifteen days. “Then we will see what will happen,” added the source.
As confirmed by workers from the university campus, they are afraid that they will not be paid their settlements now that the institution will pass into the hands of the State.
For their part, other UNN students stated “that they will not submit to official letterhead universities because they don’t believe in that type of university invented by the dictatorship”.
According to the complainants, in those universities that are now administered by the Ortega State, they only teach them political fanaticism and the teaching staff lacks preparation to train quality students. “With the cancellation of the Universidad del Norte de Nicaragua, higher education is mortally wounded, especially in these rural areas,” said a teacher from the extinct UNN.
By United Voices
