Speech by the President of the Government of Spain at the event 'In defence of a quality university, key to social mobility'

Pious Schools of the UNED, Madrid

SPEECH BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE GOVERNMENT OF SPAIN, PEDRO SÁNCHEZ

Good morning and thank you to all the authorities who are with me. I do not want to expand on them either, but I do want to thank the rector, Ricardo, the president of the CRUE and the other rectors who are with us, for your company, and for being at an event that we in the Government consider to be important.

Fifty years ago - and it has been said in a different way, but I think we have all more or less reached the same point - the fate of entire generations of Spaniards was, unfortunately, set in stone. Sons and daughters were destined to repeat the history of fathers and mothers. Minister Diana Morán said it earlier. Some, a minority, were the most fortunate, because they inherited assets, property, networks and, most importantly, they inherited intellectual capital, knowledge, culture, books in the home, almost always provided by a father who was the only one who had had access to higher education.

It was a minority, because none of that was present in the vast majority of working class housing in our country. An encyclopaedia or a bookshelf was an unattainable luxury for many families 50 years ago. And there, in addition to the father's job, often precarious, hard, poorly paid, they inherited resignation in the face of a painful fact, which was the impossibility of going to university, of studying at university.

This was also reflected in vocational training, to which we have also given a decisive boost over the last seven years. But then we lived in a Spain where talent was not enough, where dreams had a ceiling, where cradle weighed more than merit and, therefore, where social mobility, as they say in lift terms, was a utopia.

This is true. It began to change, as the rector said earlier, 50 years ago, especially during the 1980s, when Spain was able to build the real social lift that, above all, offered our sons and daughters something as valuable as the ability to choose their own future. I also experienced this at home, with my father and my mother, and of course, unlike what happened to previous generations, to our grandfathers and grandmothers, we built a universal health system, a social protection model that left no one behind, and a quality education system.

And the touchstone of that social lift was the radical transformation of our university system. I remember, during the financial crisis, there was talk that many faculties, many universities, had to be abolished.... 'We have many public universities' was said at the time, do you remember? And they always said this from one part of Spain, very much concentrated in the capital, because obviously in the province of Granada the importance of having a university in Granada was well known, especially for the poorest families, for their sons and daughters.

In any case, these advances were possible thanks to a vision of a country based, as the minister said, on equal opportunities; equal opportunities whose greatest exponent was our university.

And of all the possible models, Spain opted for a quality, accessible public university system, present throughout the country. Universities conceived as engines of growth, but also of transformation, of the young democracy that we were then. And I think it is very important, as some of the student representatives said earlier, to talk about employability, of course, but also about the intellectual training that gives you the tools, as Fernando de los Ríos said, to be able to be free.

And, in this sense, I believe that universities, what we did then, what was achieved from Spain, was that it should not be a place where the privileges of yesteryear were reproduced, (but) that it should become a meeting place for students from all social backgrounds; universities that would allow hundreds of thousands of young people from humble families to become engineers, doctors, lawyers, in short, whatever they wanted.

Many of these young people were the first university students in the history of their families - as the Minister for Science, Innovation and Universities herself has said before, until she became a minister in the Government of Spain. That was our country's great commitment: a public university system that underpins progress, social cohesion, territorial cohesion and that opens its doors wide to the whole of society.

And we succeeded. Some data speaks volumes about the collective effort that has been made to achieve this goal. From 350,000 students in 1970, we doubled in just a decade, and reached 1.5 million by the end of the 1990s. Whereas in our grandparents' generation only 1 in 10 people had higher education, today more than 1 in 2 young people have access to university education. Moreover, universities reached many historically ignored territories, becoming a structuring element of our country, of territorial cohesion.

We are building a solid public network, with no distinctions between centres or autonomous communities. It was no longer necessary to move to the big capitals to study for a degree, something that was previously only possible with family support and, therefore, a young man from Badajoz could study medicine in Valencia, or a girl from Teruel could study marine sciences in Cadiz. Because here the important thing has never been where you study, but what you learn. And it was never relevant whether you studied in Madrid or in La Laguna (Tenerife), in Malaga or in A Coruña.

Thanks to this collective effort made by Spain, we are now the seventh-ranked country in the European Union with the best-trained young people, and this is recognised when one goes outside Spain and talks about human capital. Now that there is a lot of interest in Spain for everything that is happening, for the investments, the reindustrialisation and the transformations that are being made, the training of our human capital is being recognised, and very much so, by many companies, by many foreign investors. Young people who are recognised, as I have said, within and beyond our borders, for their preparation, their ability, their adaptation and their talent. We are also the third-ranked country in the European Union with the third highest number of people enrolled in higher education.

In short, our public universities have not only trained the best professionals, they have also been, as has been said here by some of the speakers, great centres of research and development for the country. Today they carry out 70% of Spain's scientific and technological research and they do so in areas that are key to our growth, for example, health, the environment or technology in a broad sense. Therefore, thanks to the universal and quality public university model built up over the last 50 years, with its vicissitudes and difficulties, today any citizen, wherever they live, knows that the surgeon who will operate on them has received excellent training. And, thanks to this model, Spain has been able to transform its productive fabric, adapt to technological change, and become one of the fastest growing and most job-creating countries in Europe. And thanks also to this model, the best research centres in the world compete to attract our students.

And it is true, this has not been easy. Those of you who are here know this well. But if there is one story that, in my opinion, explains Spain's progress in these decades, it is the history of the public university system, of our education system as a whole. And this, it must be said, is a success story. Yes, it is a success story, representing the pride of many Spanish families and the satisfaction of seeing that their children have been able to study in public universities what they could not. And it has also been said here, and it is true that all this achievement does not prevent us from having to improve, from somehow resigning ourselves to a situation that, in effect, runs a very obvious risk. It is not just an institution that is at stake. What is at stake is the future of hundreds of thousands of young people in our country and, therefore, the model of country we want to build.

Only yesterday we saw in one of the main print media the consequences of the drift towards privatisation of nothing less than the university system. Because there is also politics behind this privatisation, as one of the student representatives said. What is at risk is a model of higher education in which universal access and the guarantee of quality and excellence are deliberately threatened.

I believe it is because of the will of those who want to fragment and privatise our university system. Of those who are willing that equality of opportunity should no longer be guaranteed, as if equality of opportunity and meritocracy were at odds when the opposite is the case. Without equal opportunities there is no ability to make and realise merit in our society. We already know the method. We know it well, they are not inventing the wheel, they are not discovering America, they are applying what they have done in many other areas that are pillars of the welfare state, for example, public health. What is done first is to weaken it, to question it, and then to privatise it. First they cut resources to undermine their functioning and - it has been said here - then what is done: their service, their quality, is questioned, precisely because of the resources that are taken away. And finally, when the deterioration is evident, privatisation is presented as the only solution. Therefore, they drain resources, performance worsens and in the end the only way out is privatisation.

And the process has been underway for some time. Here in Madrid, for example, the regional government has cut funding to public universities by almost 30% since 2016. Whether there was more or less growth, whether there was more or less public revenue, in the autonomous community what has been done has been to cut, cut and cut, as I said before, by 30% the funding of public universities since 2016.

In an autonomous community as important in terms of population as Andalusia, the university budget has been completely frozen for six years. And, as the minister said earlier, we have increased resources to all the autonomous communities, the transfers, by an average of more than 50% compared to previous administrations.

And the result, therefore, of this deliberate plan is a decline in the quality of the system. It is a real, if we can use the term, programmed obsolescence that begins with the degradation of institutions, continues with the precariousness of teaching and research staff and concludes with the reduction of places in the most in-demand degrees, which is what is happening, for example, in the areas linked to health.

They seek to replace the paradigm of equality with that of the worst inequality, which rewards surnames and bank accounts. It is the logical consequence of prioritising tax giveaways to those who have the most and cutting public services.

And what is more, if you will allow me, they do so with an extra dose of cynicism, because what they then do is ask the General State Administration to assume the costs of the public services that these public administrations have degraded.

In short, fewer resources, more demands and zero commitment to the welfare of citizens.

And while public universities are being stifled in terms of funding, a red carpet is being rolled out for the creation of the academies referred to above. Centres which, on many occasions, not all of them, do not seek excellence or research, but simply to make money by issuing degrees without real requirements, turning them into educational kiosks, a process with a collateral victim beyond the public university system, which is also to discredit the good private universities that we have in our country and which are also an international reference.

In other words, the whole university system is fractured and weakened, fundamentally the public one, but also the prestigious private universities.

Look, since the last public university was opened - in 1998 - 26 private universities have been created. In the last decade alone, ten more have been authorised and nine more are awaiting the evaluation of their opening dossier.

This would not be a problem if they all met the requirements, but this is not the case, as stated here. The problem is that many of them have negative reports from the General Conference on University Policy and despite this, they are open today, as has been said here. Reports warning about the lack of quality criteria, for example, in the selection system for lecturers, about the low investment in research, about the lack of variety of studies offered or about the lack of internal guarantees and management experience.

And this does not only mean a loss of academic rigour, it also means a commitment to the quality of our lecturers, our teaching staff, our professionals, because we are talking about those who tomorrow are going to look after our health, defend our rights, build our infrastructures.

In short, universities cannot be a guarantee, or rather, a factory of degrees without guarantees. What is at stake is not only education, but the confidence of a whole society in its professionals and its institutions.

And that is the reason why the Government of Spain is fighting to defend the Spanish university system. We will defend the quality, equity and prestige of our university system.

And, of course, we are going to break a lance in favour of the public sector, without detracting from those private institutions that do work well, with rigour and quality.

And yes, we know. We know that a large part of the powers in this area lie with the regional governments, as the minister said earlier. But that's not going to make us sit on our hands. We have never done so, nor will we do so on this occasion, because the stakes are so high.

And we have done so over the years. During these last years we have approved the LOSU, we have increased the budget for scholarships by 65%, that is, by more than one billion euros since we came to government in 2018.

We have made it possible for university internships to pay social security contributions, in order to protect our young people as they enter the labour market. We have increased the number of places; we have improved the working conditions of trainee researchers, even if there is still much to be done; and we have succeeded in drastically reducing tuition fees.

That is why, today, from this emblematic place, dear Rector of the Escuelas Pías de San Fernando, probably one of the most prestigious and, of course, one of the more than 60 UNED centres throughout the country, I would like to announce two measures that we are going to adopt in the next few days.

The first thing we are going to do is to have a relaunch plan for the UNED, which is still the largest public university in Spain and the largest in terms of student numbers.

This plan, together with the Multiannual Funding Plan, is intended to lay the foundations for the transformation that the UNED will undergo in the coming years.

We will allocate 30 million euros for the first year, which represents a 35% increase in the Government's contribution. What we want is for the UNED to rise to the challenges of our time and that is why we are going to act on three fronts.

First, we want to renew digital capabilities with cutting-edge technology so that it can compete in the growing distance learning market.

Secondly, we want to increase the number of places on bachelor's and master's degrees to 5,000, such as the master's degree in teacher training or the master's degree in general health psychology. And we will double the current offer so that no one will have to pay a fortune in the private sector in order to be able to practice a regulated profession.

And finally, we are going to create 2,000 new places linked to bachelor's and master's degrees in high-demand degrees, such as Education, Communication, as well as new degrees that respond to market demands, such as the degree in Artificial Intelligence, Neuroscience or Computational Neutronics.

In short, what we want is what it is. What we want is for the UNED to be the benchmark university in Spain in virtual, public and quality education. A modern, accessible, prestigious institution that leads the digital transformation of the university system without renouncing the values of the public university system: equality, excellence and a vocation for service.

We support the public university system with the same conviction with which we want to combat the advance of private centres that rigorously and unscrupulously prioritise business over quality. Those little kiosks that do not meet the standards that should be demanded of our higher education, damaging the system as a whole. That is why I would like to take up the gauntlet that has been raised by lecturers and, of course, also by students to announce this second point.

What we are going to do is to tighten up the criteria for the creation, recognition and authorisation of universities and university centres. A university cannot be a vending machine. We will pursue practices that undermine the prestige of our universities, both public and private, so that they meet our standards of quality and ensure the excellence of the professors, or rather, of the professionals who look after us and defend us.

And how are we going to do that? Well, we're going to do it three ways. The first is that we are going to strengthen the requirements to ensure that universities are quality projects. What does it mean? Well, it means that to the report of the General Conference on University Policy we will add an evaluation report, and I stress, mandatory, drawn up by ANECA or the equivalent regional agencies. That is what we are going to put in place. A report that is binding in the process of setting up new universities, thus ensuring rigorous and independent control.

Secondly, what we are going to do is to tighten the opening criteria and, therefore, a minimum critical mass of 4,500 students will be required in the first five years of operation. We will reform the economic soundness guarantees. We will ask for a commitment to provide at least 10% of university accommodation to facilitate access to housing. And experience in university management will be required of its promoters. And they will therefore have stricter research requirements to ensure a real commitment to research and knowledge generation.

And thirdly, we are going to propose that online universities should be considered national in scope, because their scope of action is in practice the whole country and therefore they can only be authorised with the approval of Parliament in order to strengthen oversight and guarantee their academic quality for the benefit of students throughout the country.

And you may ask, when is all this going to be done? Well, given the urgency of this issue, I can tell you that tomorrow we are going to take the tightening of the criteria to the Council of Ministers for urgent processing, so that it can enter into force as soon as possible.

To conclude. I know we must do much more to protect and strengthen our university system. All administrations with responsibilities in this area should do so. But it is true that there is inaction on the part of some, or irresponsible management on the part of others, or deliberate on the part of many others.

But you can be sure that the Government of Spain will act because the stakes are high. Because we have to choose between a higher education model that is universal, quality, that gives opportunities to those who need them and that brings social and territorial cohesion to our country, as a Central European university model has been described before. In short, a model that discriminates between those who can pay and those who cannot. That does not believe in excellence, research and social responsibility. I am referring to those who do not believe. A model that does not want universities to be meeting places where innovation and knowledge that enriches us all can emerge, but rather short-term businesses that benefit only a few.

To the entire university community, to the teaching and research staff, to the administrative staff, to the services and therefore also to the students and their families, I would like to reiterate that the Government is defending our university model and that it will support them in making society see what is at stake.

And what I ask the rest of the public to do is to join in this mobilisation in defending the public sector, of equal opportunities and of merit. Defending the university system that unites and ennobles us as a society and as a country. Defending all the good that our history has given us, an education system, a university system such as the one we have built since the 1980s with that social mobility lift which today, unfortunately, as has been said, has seized up. It is up to all of us to make sure that this lift never stops again. And the Government of Spain's commitment will undoubtedly be there, let there be no doubt about it.

That's all. So, thank you very much.

(Transcript edited by the State Secretariat for Communication)

Original speech in Spanish