The occupation of UNCo grows and is ratified
Por translation: mark - Wednesday, Nov. 10, 2004 at 6:13 PM

Sunday 7th of December Against the deepening of neoliberal reforms In Viedma, the capital of Río negro province the Dean`s office of the Universidad Nacional is being occupied by the assembly, La Asamblea de Estudiantes del Centro Universitario Regional Zona Atlántico. This is added to the occupations in Neuquen, Cipolletti, Gral. Roca and Bariloche. On Friday the 5th of November in Neuquen we waited for the rectorate (1)´s response to the demands presented by students at the Discussion Table. Apparantly the representatives of the rectorate had made a commitment in the final meeting of the Table that took place on Thursday night in the university. At 1pm., they called saying that yet they had not agreed and so the Table of Discussion was suspended. (1) rectorado translates in the dictionary as rectorate. Which i had never heard before, but apparently refers to the the principal of certain schools, colleges, and universities.

The reform that the government and CONEAU want
by fuc Wednesday October 27, 2004 at 03:11 PM
fuc_comahue@yahoo.com.ar

In the last month and a half the offensive of the government to reform the university system in all the country has intensified. The two main arguments that are being given by the government are that the university is not adapting to the changes taking place in the country in the last… three years! and, from the legal point of view, that it is not being adapted to the law of higher education. At the same time, the main tools to implement the changes that they propose are the CONEAU and the budget.
A the height of the menemista epoch (1995) (1), the law of higher education (LES) was approved (though not without a strong student resistance) , that the "counsels" of the World Bank apply for higher education in the third world, present in the World Bank document "lessons of experience" 1993. But the laws do not automatically create realities to their image, it weighed heavily on the high-up officials... now they had to implement it. And its implementation was and continues to be, an uneven development for the university system of the country. Let’s see.

Many universities adapted their statutes to the LES, but not the UBA and the university of Comahue. But in all the universities the main sign that indiciates the penetration of the law is seeing to what degree the State has given university ‘desfinanciamiento’ (which obliges them to seek business resources which are those that have the currency) and to what degree the CONEAU has been recognized as an organ of accreditation of our universities. The ‘desfinanciamiento’ by Kirchner is obvious, already we see the increase in the cost of life and the increase in the number of students studying, contrasted with the crumbs of an increase in the university budget, which was repeated again this year. The Argentine universities assign three times less per student than in Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, etc. But the subject of accreditation has been much harder to see these days in its importance and in its degree of application. To begin with, we guess you might be wondering: what the hell is CONEAU?
The CONEAU (2) (National Commission of Evaluation and University Accreditation)

Is an organ created by the LES, brought together by people appointed by parliament, the military, and the rectors of private and public universities. Its function is to evaluate and to accredit our degrees, postgraduate courses and research, that is to say that if they do not they approve them, they lose validity as titles to be used professionally, for example, and immediately afterwards the government stops financing them. Since the 1995 this plan was complied with step by step, even pretending to go back down in the cases in which they found greater resistance. And thus it was applied for the degrees of the private universities, for many of the UTN, for many postgraduate courses and research, not only in the universities that recognized the LETS, but even of that of the Comahue and of the UBA, that never even did. In fact the UBA had successfully interposed a resource of protection before the justice department, because the LETS unconstitutionally violates the university’s autonomy. But they were unable to implement it against those degrees which were cut.
At the end of August of this year, the education department organized a meeting in Tucumán with the rectors of all the country to put them in their place. Synthetically they were told that they have to reform their degrees in keeping with the new "needs" (shortening of bachelor degrees, reinforcement of the postgraduate courses – their payments -, changes in the degree content in keeping with the interest of those sectors that regionally finance the university). You don’t need to worry, CONEAU will tell how to do it (ergo, to recognize the CONEAU). We’ll keep a part of next year’s budget for higher education in order to assign it to the universities that best comply with this plan. And from there on, time sped up..
Posadas, Paraná, Usuhaia, Comahue and the signatures continue...

The offensive of the national government has been let loose on the degrees of "national interest", those more directly related to production and engineering. An offensive that in reality has been supported for a while by the UTN. Thus, some degrees saw how validity was removed from their titles, while others were recommended they cut contents (especially those related to economics and politics). Before this offensive, the answer has been, occupation of the faculties and an explosion of participation in massive assemblies. Nevertheless, we all know that a flower doesn’t make the spring, in other words, saying ‘no’ will not suffice: we need to build our response greater. Said another way, occupations and ¿what else? How do we surpass the autonomy understood as the isolation of the university in itself, where each student is an individual that is going to receive their professional title to have a tool to compete in the labour market and nothing more. How do we build an autonomy that keeps to the word and the needs of our class, of our organizations. Confronted with the project of the World Bank and the local dominant sectors, a different project for university and society, different study plans, new ways to study.
It’s clear that it’s very difficult to give an answer to all this, and much more from the solitude of the student. But an occupation its exactly the time that can permit us to talk with students outside of study time, to talk with the popular organizations that share the fight (as in the case of Comahue who are sharing the struggle with the workers of Zanón, the MTD and others). It’s also an instance in which we students find ourselves among ourselves (if not then the occupation would be impossible to do).
(1) The adjective Menemist/Menemista comes from Menem, president during the 90s.
(2) comisión nacional de evaluación y acreditación universitaria

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