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The executive vice president of the Council of Rectors, Juan Manuel Zolezzi, announced that the full assembly of rectors will participate in the new design of Regulated Fees, following the decision of the Undersecretary of Higher Education to challenge the technical bases formulated during the previous administration.
At Thursday's session, the Council bid farewell to the Rector of the University of Chile, Ennio Vivaldi, who will leave his post at the end of June. The Council also reviewed the current situation and requirements of universities for implementing Law No. 21,369, based on a report from the CRUCH Gender Equality Commission.
“We will support the authorities in this process, always ensuring that elements such as university participation and transparency are respected, which did not happen in the previous process,” said Juan Manuel Zolezzi, executive vice president of the Council of Rectors of Chilean Universities (CRUCH), regarding the Ministry of Education's decision to challenge the technical bases of the regulated tuition fees prepared by the previous administration and initiate a new process.
Rector Zolezzi's remarks came during the 633rd session of the Council of Rectors of Chilean Universities (CRUCH), held at the University of Valparaíso's Law School. At the session, the Undersecretary of Higher Education, Verónica Figueroa, outlined a timeline for setting regulated tuition fees, which were to take effect in 2023, and invited CRUCH to participate in the process.
Rector Zolezzi indicated that the rectors agreed to accept the invitation of the undersecretary and participate in this instance, ensuring that the procedure provides guarantees to the institutions.
“We want the process to be participatory, so that the institutions' proposals are taken into account. We also hope that a new tuition fee structure, based on historical costs, will not disadvantage some institutions and will avoid what is called a zero-sum game, where if some receive an increase, others receive a decrease for some reason. There needs to be a sufficient allocation of resources,” explained Rector Zolezzi.
It is worth remembering that, in October of last year, The Comptroller General of the Republic (CGR) issued a statement regarding the setting of the values of the Regulated Tariffs, through opinion No. E14768.
In that document, the CGR stated that the Undersecretariat of Higher Education did not allow the effective participation of academic institutions during the information gathering process, especially by not providing the calculation records that allowed replicating, verifying and validating the operations.
The oversight body also questioned why the technical guidelines did not explain why the Undersecretariat rejected the observations made by the Expert Commission created by Law No. 21,091 to participate in this specific procedure. It was also noted that the Undersecretariat only provided a generic explanation of the criteria it used to follow the Commission's guidelines, without clearly explaining the methodology employed. Furthermore, the Undersecretariat deviated from the technical guidelines when creating the special groups and altered the grouping methodology that the experts had approved.
In this scenario, the previous administration took into account the CGR's recommendations, modified the technical bases, and published them in March 2022. However, in the opinion of the current authorities, methodological problems still remain, and consequently, they opted to invalidate them.
Implementation of Law No. 21,369
On the other hand, in order to understand the requirements that CRUCH universities and institutions have to implement Law No. 21,369, which regulates sexual harassment, violence and gender discrimination in the field of higher education, the plenary reviewed a report prepared by the CRUCH Gender Equality Commission.
On that occasion, the coordinator of the Commission, Antonia Santos, presented the conditions in which the educational institutions find themselves to apply the various obligations related to the regulation.
In this regard, Rector Zolezzi emphasized that “information is being gathered so that the authorities of each university can request background information from their gender units regarding the current situation. The assessment is positive; it's not everything we would like, but progress is being made.”.
For her part, the rector in charge of the Gender Equality Commission, Natacha Pino, stated that “it is important to highlight the role that we, as rectors, have in advancing this issue, because we are the first ones responsible for making this happen (…) The law is an opportunity to give priority to these issues that are so relevant to the community.”.
Farewell to Rector Vivaldi
The CRUCH plenary session took the opportunity to bid farewell to the rector of the University of Chile, Ennio Vivaldi, who will leave his post on June 22.
The executive vice president of CRUCH stated that “we have had the honor of working with Ennio Vivaldi and I believe I speak for everyone when I say that if there is one thing that characterizes him, it is his absolute conviction that universities must be at the service of the country, which is linked to his absolute commitment to the public vocation of university work.”.
Zolezzi added that “Rector Vivaldi has been a great asset to CRUCH, especially during the pandemic years. If Chile manages to resume vaccine production, it will be a national triumph thanks to his conviction.”.
For his part, the rector of the University of Chile valued his participation in the Council of Rectors. “What unites the universities that are part of CRUCH is too important to ignore the things that differentiate us,” Ennio Vivaldi affirmed.
New members in the CRUCH
At its session this Thursday, the University Council welcomed the new rector of the University of Talca, Carlos Torres Fuchslocher, who assumed the position on May 5, replacing Álvaro Rojas Marín. Torres is a Mechanical Civil Engineer and former Vice-Rector of Economic Management and Administration at the same institution.
It was also reported that recently, the President Gabriel Boric appointed as Secretary General of CRUCH –through the Public Senior Management System (ADP)– to Angélica Bosch Cartagena, who will assume the position during June.
In this context, the rectors highlighted the work of the general secretary (s) of CRUCH, Marcela Cifuentes, who assumed the position in October of last year, while the competition was being resolved.
*Photographs: Matías Salazar, U. of Valparaíso.
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