It goes on and on. Last Friday we woke up to the approval of a decree that establishes the new organization of university education and opens the door to reducing careers to three years and extending master's degrees to two.
According to Minister Wert's theory, this measure "flexibilizes" the academic offer and lowers the cost of training. In practice, studies are once again designed for the rich - those who can afford longer degrees - and for the poor - young people who will be able to access higher education at the cost of cutting content and therefore knowledge.
Does the minister think that express graduates (three courses plus a master's degree) will compete on equal terms in the labor market with four-year graduates and two master's degrees? Has the minister thought about resuming the scholarship policy so that the less wealthy have access to the same training as the rest of the students?
It goes on and on. Wert is at the forefront of inequality policies by reducing opportunities, once his colleague Ana Mato, champion of the cut in universal health care and the charging for medicines, is off the board. And the minister's pulse does not tremble when he returns to the charge in the deterioration of the training offer of our young people, torpedoing the waterline of equal opportunities, which has education as its cornerstone.
It is the model of the Popular Party: health and education for those who can afford it; and along the way, the devaluation of the public. Because the reduction in the number of credits needed to complete undergraduate studies and the foreseeable loss of students will have a negative impact on the financing of state universities and will generate benefits for private ones. What a fluke.
*José Montelongo, local secretary PSOE Arrecife.
