The Government of Pedro Sánchez is parking all the university controversies before the elections of the next 23-J. Every vote counts and there are nearly 230,000 people working in Spanish universities, including professors, researchers, technicians, and administration and service personnel. For this reason, after paralyzing the controversial new Selectividad, he has decided to suspend three projects of royal decrees that were generating a lot of discomfort on campus. The most questioned is the one that forced employers to contribute to Social Security for all trainee students. But it also leaves in the air the one that imposed the reduction of university departments and the one that mixed fields of knowledge. There are three decrees that are highly questioned by rectors, by teachers, by businessmen and by the regional governments.

In exchange, the Executive maintains two other decrees that did not arouse so much rejection because they are more technical: the one for a doctorate and the one that regulates state accreditation to be a civil servant. The Secretary General of Universities, José Manuel Pingarrón, has sent a letter to the rectors, to which EL MUNDO has had access, in which he explains that “the situation of electoral advancement makes it unfeasible for the processing of all royal decrees to arrive given that, among other aspects, the mandatory reports for all of them are not possible in the short period of time that exists before the elections”.

For this reason, he adds, “it is necessary to establish a priority for requesting reports and processing, always taking into account the provisions that already appear in the Organic Law of the University System (Losu) and the incidence of the aforementioned draft royal decrees in the ordinary operation of universities.

On Wednesday afternoon, Pingarrón participated in a Management Committee of the Ministry of Universities in which the possibilities of continuing with the processing of the pending royal decrees were evaluated. And from there came “not to continue” with the processing of the royal decrees of fields of knowledge and organization of university departments. Professors do not like the first because, for the purposes of establishing the templates, areas of knowledge that until now had been separated were going to be mixed (for example, surgery with podiatry, or psychology with speech therapy) and this was going to harm them at work, as these areas are used for the purpose of assigning jobs.

The second decree made it compulsory to reduce the number of university departments before the end of 2024. It set 35 professors as the minimum to have a department open, when it is now legally 12. This measure, intended to save money, was considered by the rectors an “intrusion” in its university autonomy, since now each campus has its organizational structure as it deems appropriate. Merging departments harms the directors and middle managers and also the administration and service staff that depend on each one of them.

The letter also specifies the intention of the Ministry to repeal the rule currently in force that regulates the departments, from 1984, with which they will give absolute freedom to the universities to do what they want. It is a complete lurch, since the initial plan was much more interventionist and this solution is the opposite extreme.

Pingarrón takes advantage of his letter to the rectors to also inform them of the “disposition” of the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migrations “to postpone the entry into force of the mandatory Social Security contributions of university students in practices”. He tells them that in this Ministry, led by José Luis Escrivá, “they are looking for the legal instrument” to park this measure.

Rectors and Autonomous Communities of different political persuasions had warned that with it the titles of “thousands of students” of FP and university were put “at risk”, because the measure, designed to take effect from October, implied a ” high bureaucratic burden” and was going to force universities to change tens of thousands of agreements.

Until this decree, only students who did paid internships were enrolled in Social Security. The idea was that everyone did it, whether the internships were paid or not, and whether they were curricular or extracurricular. The problem was not so much the cost for the employer (contribution expenses were subsidized by 95% and paid by the State) but the laborious process involved in registering and canceling Social Security, which could deter many small and medium-sized companies. companies when hiring students. The universities had also warned that their students were not going to find a place to do their internships due to the obligation of having to sign new agreements and that this would prevent them from obtaining the degree, since these internships are an essential requirement to graduate in many cases. .

But not all pending decrees are parked. Minister Joan Subirats’ team has decided to continue with the processing of more technical regulations, such as the doctoral royal decree, the most advanced in its development and which will be sent to the Council of State in a few days for it to issue its report. This norm is maintained, says Pingarrón, “taking advantage of the fact that its status of processing makes it more feasible for it to be completed in a timely manner.” He argues that “some aspect of this decree cannot be delayed, such as the regulation of official university degrees of the EC European Universities Program or the granting of subsidies to public universities to modernize and digitize within the framework of the Recovery Plan , Transformation and Resilience. That is, questions that are to the liking of universities.

The draft royal decree regulating state accreditation for access to university teaching bodies and the regime for competitions for access to said bodies will also continue. This regulation is more delayed and is after those that have been paralyzed, but, even so, Subirats maintains it, ensuring that it is “fundamental for the implementation of the LOSU”.

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