Public universities rebelled against the cuts foreseen in the State Budget (OE) for 2013 and have already managed, at least, to get the Minister of Finance Vítor Gaspar to assume that he will study the demands of the rectors of Portuguese Higher Education institutions and admit that is willing to dialogue.
Something that did not prevent the top officials of public universities from reading a statement simultaneously, in several cities across the country, at 12 noon today, Friday, where they once again rejected cuts the size of those planned and warned that they will mean the impossibility of working for many institutions.
In the Algarve, the spokesperson for the message of the Council of Rectors of Portuguese Universities was the dean of the University of Algarve (UAlg) João Guerreiro, one of the institutions that ensure that they will not be able to accommodate the planned cuts.
In the case of Ualg, the cuts amount to 12,5 percent in relation to the share of the OE granted to the Algarve university in 2012, which, in cash, represents "about 4 million euros" less.
"The university has a global budget of around 50 million euros, 52 percent of which comes from direct transfers from the State and the rest are its own revenues," he revealed. With the cuts, the approximately 27 million euros that were expected to come from the state, go "to 23 or 24 million".
Asked by journalists what he intends to do if the cuts really go ahead, João Guerreiro insisted that this will make the university impossible to function, as Ualg has already cut where it could cut in recent years and there are no prospects of being able to increase its own revenues, at a time of crisis, as I had already told the Sul Informação and to RUA FM this week, in the radio program “Impressions”.
A student present in the auditorium also questioned the dean about what will happen to the institution's students in this scenario. João Guerreiro stressed that this is a problem that affects not only "the ten thousand students at Ualg, but the 250 thousand students in Portuguese Public Higher Education" and that this is the big question that the finance minister will have to consider.
As for the possibility of dismissals, João Guerreiro highlighted the value of the cuts and left the challenge to those present to calculate how many people would have to fire to accommodate them, taking into account that a university professor earns "40 to 50 thousand euros a year". Accounts made, assuming a cut of 3 million and 700 thousand euros and a salary of 50 thousand euros a year, it would be necessary to dismiss 74 professors to balance the accounts in this way. In the case of non-teaching staff, whose average remuneration is much lower, the number would be much higher.
Academy united against cuts
The press conference scheduled by the UAlg rectory also served to mobilize the academic community to reject the measure provided for in the 2013 State Budget.
Teachers, students and staff filled the Great Auditorium of the University's Gambelas Campus, with the directors of the organic units and the president of the Academic Association taking the stage and standing behind João Guerreiro while reading the CRUP communiqué. that the other rectors read, at the same time, all over the country.
The message from the deans of Portuguese universities was in the sense of the message that João Guerreiro has been publicly conveying for weeks: if the cuts are those foreseen in the Budget already approved in general, Ualg will not be able to function and will enter into "a situation of widespread non-compliance" , either in the payment of salaries, or in the payment of suppliers and social benefits.
More than that, the CRUP made a point of remembering not only what Universities do for Portugal, but also what the country will lose if this reduction in transfers from the state advances as it is.
In the latter case, the list was separated into seven general areas, starting with education and continuing with research, innovation, internationalization, specialization, cooperation and financing, in this case, not only from universities, but also from the country.
In addition to this concerted initiative that took place today, the CRUP has already scheduled a «solemn communication to the country» for a week, on November 16, at the Sala dos Capelos of the University of Coimbra, which will bring together all the rectors of public universities, « accompanied by other academic leaders' of these institutions.
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