Executive Vice President of CRUCH on Gratuity: "Equal opportunities are not respected when students are left without a financing option"

The Council of Rectors will present to the Ministry of Education new proposals to address the situation of those who can get Gratuity for exceeding the formal duration of the careers.

The rector Aldo Valle said that "the students require the support of the State and the solution is not to sanction the universities."

"Equal opportunities are not respected when students are left without a financing option," said the executive vice president of the Council of Rectors of Chilean Universities (CRUCH), Aldo Valle, in the framework of the ordinary session No. 606 of the CRUCH , held today, Thursday, July 25, in Santiago.

In the session, the rectors agreed to present a proposal to the Ministry of Education (MINEDUC), in which solutions are proposed to the problems of design of Gratuity and its effects on the continuity of studies of those who lose the benefit by exceeding the formal duration of their careers. During 2019, 15 thousand students from CRUCH universities have lost their Gratuity, which has resulted in losses of the order of 22 billion pesos for the houses of study.

In this regard, the rector Aldo Valle, argued that the current design of Law No. 21,091 implies a sanction to the institutions "with respect to events that have a previous origin and distant from the universities." He explained that «the students of the first six deciles, for the most part, have deficits in their previous training and that is also the responsibility of the education they receive from the State, because in Chile, about the 92% of the school system is financed from the State or with some state subsidy ».

Therefore, in the opinion of the executive vice president of CRUCH and rector of the University of Valparaíso, the Executive and Congress must consider the shortcomings of the educational system in the analysis of this public policy. In this sense, «the most reasonable and sensible thing is that the answer to this need does not come from the institutions or the students; rather, it responds to an axis of public policy that allows people to have equal opportunities, "said Valle.

For that reason, he called on the Executive not to transfer the cost of those who lose their Gratuity to the affiliated institutions. Valle insisted that the students “require the support of the State and the solution is not to sanction the universities. Do you want to distance the institutions from this policy? It seems to us that it is an inconsistency that we reject, because Gratuity is an inclusive policy and the solutions to its problems must respond to those principles ».

He added that “the Government falls into a contradiction, because, on the one hand, it has a critical, negative and distant view of politics and its design; but, persevere in the solution proposed by that law. We believe that it is necessary to resolve this contradiction.

Regarding the options to solve the problems of Gratuity design, the executive vice president of CRUCH said that there are opportunities to introduce improvements in the processing of the initiative that creates the Solidarity Financing System (SIFS) and the 2020 Budget Law, which could Incorporate funds to create academic leveling programs or to compensate for the economic impact caused by the loss of benefits in the houses of study.

Respect for powers

In another area, the rector Valle was consulted by the media regarding the possible appointment of Carlos Williamson as undersecretary of Higher Education, due to his contrary position regarding Gratuity.

"As a Council, we are respectful of the powers of the President of the Republic and it is up to us to help the authorities perform their functions in the best way," said the executive vice president of CRUCH. He added that "it is always necessary to distinguish that statements can be made while one does not have public responsibilities, but those statements must be contextualized, because their effects are different if one has public responsibilities or not."

Finally, regarding Williamson's comments, contrary to the Museum of Memory and Human Rights, the rector Valle pointed out that they are “opinions that I disagree with, because I am far from thinking that the museum is something like a fallacy or a construction of propaganda. I think in a very different way, but I hope, of course, that these beliefs do not interfere in public policy in higher education, because that is a responsibility that is assumed on behalf of the State of Chile ”.