Juventudes Socialistas de Lanzarote y La Graciosa has denounced this Tuesday that the scholarship system of the Government of the Canary Islands continues to fail to respond to the real needs of students from non-capital islands. The organization considers that the regional aid “is neither agile, nor useful, nor sufficient” to guarantee equal opportunities.
The Secretary of Organization of Juventudes Socialistas de Lanzarote, José Carlos Roger, points out that “for hundreds of young people on our island, accessing university means incurring costs that many families can barely afford. Those who study outside Lanzarote face a real odyssey to find a room or a shared apartment in Gran Canaria or Tenerife, with increasingly high rents.”
Roger acknowledges that advancing the deadline for submitting applications is a positive step, but warns that “it is of little use to open the call earlier if the aid does not arrive when it is really needed. Families have to face the rental deposit, the first month's rent, travel, or tuition during the summer, while scholarships still do not respond to the moment when these expenses must be assumed.”
The organization also criticizes that the regional Executive continues to underfund public universities while facilitating the establishment of new private universities. “One cannot speak of equal opportunities while public universities are weakened and a model that benefits those who can afford to pay for private education is favored,” it states.
Likewise, Juventudes Socialistas de Lanzarote regrets that the Ministry of Universities, led by a Lanzarote councilor, has not promoted specific measures to address the reality of students from Lanzarote and the rest of the non-capital islands.
Therefore, the organization demands a scholarship system with amounts adapted to the real cost of studying outside the island of residence, a payment of aid that responds to the needs at the beginning of the academic year, and sufficient funding for public universities in the Canary Islands. “Education must be a right, not a privilege conditioned by the island where you were born,” concludes José Carlos Roger.
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