After more than a decade without elections to choose the representation of the graduates in the co-government at the UCV, the process was finally held a couple of weeks ago. The university, somehow, was back in the news. The fact itself is important, especially if it serves to stir the national conscience and direct it to deal with what is substantial, that is, with education.
Recovering our universities and updating them represents a task of such dimensions for the entire Venezuelan society that there is no risk of exaggerating when listing them. The most visible, of course, are the infrastructure problems. The lack of budget, the premeditated abandonment, the mistreatment of the facilities have come together to put together the unfortunate picture of deterioration that they present today. The focus of its recovery, however, transcends infrastructure. It should focus on reviewing and updating its mission, its organization, its sustainability, its ability to understand and attend to the changes generated at all levels, those that are already palpable and visible and those that will continue to occur at an increasing rate.
The renovation of the universities goes through their redefinition as houses of knowledge, beginning by accepting that knowledge itself no longer resides, neither alone nor mainly, in them. The knowledge society, the digital transformation, the new forms of educational institutions largely occupy the traditional place of universities. Their subsistence is linked to their ability to adapt, to insert themselves, to interrelate with the new media, their incorporation into learning and the consideration of their consequences when defining careers, modalities, technological and administrative adjustments. The very characteristics of the new generations – millennials, Generation Z and those to come – already force new adjustments, as well as changes in the world of work such as the trend towards short careers, open and unlimited continuous training, the need to attend the high demand for technology professionals.
The sustainability of our universities goes, of course, through the solution of its financing scheme. Although the discourse of free university education still persists in some sectors or some countries, the analysis of its nature, its purpose and its demands should lead to an adequate and manageable distribution of responsibilities, which includes the State, but also and above all, to society, to the students themselves, to their families, to graduates, to companies, to institutions, and that incorporates the capacity of the university centers themselves to generate income through a productive offer of services. “Education is expensive and if we don’t get past the word ‘free’ at the higher level we won’t be able to focus resources and commitment on quality and full coverage in the pre-university stages” Father Luis Ugalde rightly reminds us.
The recovery of our universities should be a fundamental matter when thinking about the reconstruction of the country. Furthermore, it should become an example from which conclusions can be drawn for other sectors and for the country itself as a whole. It is true that no reconstruction will happen on its own. All are needed and add up, but that of educational institutions as a whole, and in particular of universities, have the virtue of animating many others.
Its result will make it possible to attend to what is fundamental: an educated society, trained for work, qualified, innovative, creative, open to the world and its dynamics, a promoter of talent and competitiveness. That is the function of educational institutions: to propose an education that privileges thinking over repeating, that attends to the development of an integral and humanistic thought, that responds to the fullness and complexity of the human being, that helps to give meaning to life, work, personal development and values. The purpose of education centers continues to be to serve the ultimate goal of human and social development through comprehensive, stimulating training, appropriate to the times and respectful of the person and their values.
The entrance university again was first published in THE NATIONAL.
