Last Friday the Working Commission for the Implementation of the Organic Law of the University System (LOSU) was constituted with the participation of the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, trade union representatives, representatives of the universities and 6 autonomous communities, including the autonomous community of the Balearic Islands.
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Education demands that the insularity and underfunding of the Balearic Islands
The purpose of the commission is to address the development and application of the LOSU, the Organic Law of the University System that is currently in force. This law was passed without consensus and without establishing a financing system for the universities that would allow them to implement the new regulations.
Thus, the most important aspects to be dealt with in this commission will be, on the one hand, the flexibility and extension of the deadlines for the application of some aspects of the LOSU and, on the other hand, the establishment of a funding system that must guarantee that by 2030 a minimum of 1% of the GDP of the State as a whole will be allocated to public university education.
The Director General of Universities and Higher Artistic Education, Sebastià Massanet, has positively assessed the constitution of the Working Committee, “a necessary initiative, but one that comes late, with great uncertainty in the universities and the autonomous communities regarding the financing of the application of the law”.
From the autonomous communities, it has been recalled that the Organic Law of Financing of the Autonomous Communities (LOFCA) obliges the State to assume the expenses derived from a state regulation that affects competencies delegated to the autonomous communities, an aspect that the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities is not taking into account in its initial proposal for negotiation. The Balearic Islands have demanded that the distribution of funding provided by the Ministry take into account the insularity, the underfunding of the Balearic Islands and the fact that some universities, such as the University of the Balearic Islands (UIB), in an exercise of responsibility, have already adapted their teaching structures to the legal framework and are now facing funding problems.
Finally, it has been demanded that any flexibilisation and extension of the deadlines of some aspects of the law should materialise with the corresponding legislative reform as soon as possible to provide security for the universities.