Teaching and research excellence at the UPV/EHU for 800 euros per month?
The Organic Law of the University System (USLO), approved in March of this year, was presented from government institutions as an instrument to alleviate the endemic deficiencies of state universities, among which the precariousness of a significant part of teaching and research staff, the abusive use of some contractual figures (such as associated teaching staff) that do not guarantee the original functions, the extension of the academic career until the stabilization of the staff. On the contrary, since the entry into force of the law, some of the situations mentioned above have been aggravated, especially in the case of one of the weakest links of the university machinery, that is, of the professors and researchers who make replacements.
The approval of the USLO implies the creation of a substitute professor figure, already existing in several state universities. In the case of the University of the Basque Country/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea (UPV/EHU), where the parity of this figure already existed, the current rectory team is taking advantage of the scant reading allowed by law to further precarize this group, altering the management of the departments, damaging the university career and, above all, worsening the quality of teaching.
"A place likely to last the year is expected to be replaced by EUR 800 per month"
With regard to this group, Article 80 provides for two situations: temporary coverage of a vacancy by substitute teachers (e.g. retirements), or temporary replacement of the service of teachers and researchers interrupting its provision. By contrast, the second situation is the most frequent. As the UPV/EHU already interprets and applies, the most immediate consequence of this point of the USLO is that those who previously were full-time substitutions are being called to be replaced part-time, with salaries that do not reach half of what could be collected previously. To complete the situation it is expected that EUR 800 per month will replace a plaza that may last one year. Compliance with these replacements in the past (or others with poorer working conditions) was predicted as a situation that would not last for a long time. This forecast has now disappeared. These substitutions are offered in most cases to people with PhD and with extensive research and teaching experience. A human capital that for years is forced to work for EUR 800 per month or who leaves his usual profession.
The ease of covering teacher replacements has been consistent with the quality of their working conditions. Full-time replacements were quickly covered; part-time posts, with a maximum salary of EUR 800 (but in some cases equivalent to the teaching burden of full-time work) could spend months unfilled, it was common for all members of the stock exchange to give up these offers. During this period the department had to assume teaching. With the precariousness of working conditions, the dissemination of this reality will be a major trend, and the members of the departments will increasingly and for a longer time assume these burdens derived spontaneously, with the impact that this will have on their other obligations (research, for example) and on the quality of education. That is, if at first the application of Article 80 of USLO will affect the substitute faculty, its impact will extend to the whole faculty.
"It will affect the growth of precariousness and the increase in the difficulties of internal life of the departments, limiting the attractiveness of the university career and, above all, reducing the quality of teaching"
In this sense, the main consequence of the application of this article will be the decrease of teaching quality. More than one in ten professors from the UPV/EHU are alternates, much of the undergraduate subjects are taught by this group. As a result of the worst working conditions, the difficulty in covering the substitutions will have consequences at different levels: teachers (stable or substitute) who must form subjects that should not belong to their field of knowledge, with evaluation systems that have not been defined, with situations of stress and anxiety generated by the teaching of classes in situations such as those that have already started the course and with which it has not been defined. The restrictive application of this section of the law will lead the university to a journal of this kind.
The UPV has already implemented this restrictive implementation of the law. Their conclusions are absolutely uncertain, but experience leads us to warn of their potential risks. In this sense, we are particularly concerned about the situations that can occur at this beginning of the 2023/24 course, when the coverage of these places becomes more necessary than ever. This situation will probably affect the growth of precariousness in the UPV/EHU and the increase of the difficulties in the internal life of the departments, limiting the attractiveness of the university career and, above all, decreasing the quality of teaching. For all these reasons, the signatories of this article would like to call for the opening of the alarm sound and the rethinking of the UPV/EHU Steering Team of interpreting a law contrary to its regulations.
Bidali zure iritzi artikuluak iritzia@argia.eus helbide elektronikora
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