After having worsened the public school with a reform made only by cuts to education, today the Council of Ministers (Prime Minister was absent due to scarlet fever) has approved the university reform. Now, everything goes to parliament where the debate is likely to be very hard.
The first who praised the minister of education Mariastella Gelmini (taking on the task that usually covers Berlusconi) was the economy minister Giulio Tremonti who said "the university reform is a great reform".
What changes then? First, the figure of the researcher becomes a fixed-term contracts, only three years renewable for another three, with public selections. If the researcher will not be considered valid, and then confirmed by the University as an associate teacher, then the employment will terminate but the researcher will have gained the qualification for other open competitions. To become a teacher, then, comes the four-year national certification, awarded on the basis of publications by a committee chosen at random from national and international experts.
Contests will be accessible only if you have this certification and selections will be made on the basis of qualifications and curriculum.
The rectors may remain in office no more than eight years and they will be elected by the professors. Universities will now have 180 days to review their statutes and above all to streamline the board of directors and the Senate and to reduce the departments. "We have already eliminated many useless courses - said the Minister, Mariastella Gelmini, during the presentation of this law at Palazzo Chigi -, we must continue on this road. We will also be able to let universities (that might wish this) to join or federate with other univerisities."
This could be convenient for some universities, since the government has expanded the financial responsibility of universities that, if mismanage resources, receive less funding. The reform also involves university teachers: the age to become a tenured teacher will fall from 36 years to 30 but the salary will increase from 1,300 to 2,100 euros. This time, however, teachers should spend more time at university. They will have to demonstrate they are in the classrooms during the lessons (usually they don't): for the first time it will set a common reference for the established full-time professors in 1,500 hours per year, although only 350 hours will be devoted to teaching and the reception of students. The rest will be research and management.
Meanwhile, the students have already decided to react. This afternoon, in eight Italian cities (Naples, Turin, Genoa, Siena, Rome, Lecce, Taranto, Bari), they organized sit in until night standing in front of the prefectures. The Union of University Students said they are "annihilated", "who makes the reforms continues not to listen to those who suffer them", comments on their website.
So they decided, as a protest action, to kidnap symbolically Mariastella. "With this initiative - it is said in a statement - it is not our intention to offend anyone or celebrating violence, we are only using a free tool, used since Roman times, satire."
They released a video in which they ask the "withdrawal of the reform, adequate funding for the university and the right to study and student participation to any discussion regarding any proposed reform."
They want a public university, free, democratic, with quality and open for all. They ask for more resources for education and not indiscriminate cuts. They invite the minister to resume the discussion from these five points, waiting for the student demonstration on 6 November in Rome.
School in ruins
Education increasingly distant
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