Catalan public universities are going to begin to reverse the precariousness of their staff for the first time in 15 years, through a stabilization process for associate professors financed by the Government with 65 million. With this, the Catalan campuses will be able to hire 820 professors in 3 years and an indeterminate number, to be determined by the universities, of administration and services personnel (PAS).
"This is a first, significant step, a signal to the entire university community that it is the political will to delve deeply into the problem of teaching staff and begin to replace associates with more stable teaching staff," said Minister Joaquim Nadal, who estimated In 9 years, at this rate, this problem could be put an end to.
The plan of the Ministry of Research and Universities is to invest 10 million this year in all universities, 20 in 2024 and 30 in 2025. Additionally, in this course, 5 million will be added to train or hire administrative staff, the result of a amendment approved by Parliament.
"If we estimate the figure of associate professors likely to participate in this program at 5,270", calculated the person in charge of the ministry, "this plan should reduce the dimension of the problem by 820 in 3 years, which is not - he admitted - the entire problem, but it is the beginning to revert a situation consequence of the cuts and the economic crisis of 2008”.
The teaching staff of the Catalan public system stands at 20,315, with a significant weight of associate professors (some 8,855 teachers). The total number of "false associates" is unknown, but Universitats establishes that some 5,270 people had an active associate contract, with a duration of at least 5 years with the same university. This is the criterion that has been set to measure the most affected group.
The associate professor is a figure that allows professionals who work in companies or entities to give classes at the university, but which, as a result of the crisis, was perverted and masked teachers who wanted to pursue a university degree without the campuses being able to hire them. From 2009 to 2013, the places vacated by retirees could not be filled and, subsequently, the replacement rate did not normalize to 100% until 2017. In the last two years it has stood at 120%, but it has not been It has recovered the bleeding of all these years.
Universities will receive a part of the budget of 60 million (not counting the 5 million allocated to the PAS) based on their size in the system as a whole. Thus, the UB will receive 2.9 million (29%); the UAB, 2.1 million (21%); the UPC, 1.9 million (19%), the URV, 908,000 (9%), the UPF, 784,700 (8%), the UdG 728,000 (7%); and the UdL 630,000 (6%). Regarding the PAS, the distribution will respect the same proportion.
On the other hand, the minister also referred to the impossibility of meeting the deadlines and some obligations imposed by the new university law, such as the existence of a majority of officials on the staff (currently it is 30%) and the minimum investment of the 1% of GDP on campus (it is at 0.57%). In the case of Catalonia, it would mean increasing the budget from the current 980 million to 2,300 million (the Pacte pel Coneximent provided for an increase of 0.8%, that is, about 1,840 million). "If the LOSU creates obligations, the Government has to provide resources," replied Nadal.
In this sense, the Ministry of Universities has just created a commission with the autonomous communities to discuss the cost of implementing the standard. "This working group has just been set up and is going to begin to study the cost of the reduction in teaching hours required by LOSU," the General Secretary of Universities José Manuel Pingarrón explained to this newspaper. “She has 18 months ahead of her,” he added. Pingarrón specified that the investment obligation of the law refers to 1% of national GDP, and not regional.
Likewise, the secretary explained that the new royal decree that forces universities, which in their statutes want to provide themselves with departments, to have a critical size, with a minimum range of 35-50 professors, is already on public display. With this, they want to promote interdisciplinarity and collaboration between teachers and researchers. "They are broader and more efficient structures". Exceptionally, for small universities, the departments can reach 15 professors.
