The University of Algarve will have to hire more professors for the Medicine Course to continue to deserve the approval of the Agency for Accreditation and Assessment of Higher Education, which validates higher education courses in Portugal.
An indication that contradicts the cuts announced by the Government and that universities are trying to avoid at all costs, but that is not the only contradiction that exists in this field, guaranteed the rector of the University of Algarve (UAlg) João Guerreiro.
In the radio program “Impressions”, run jointly by the Sul Informação and on Rádio Universitária do Algarve, the rector João Guerreiro gave examples of paradoxes in what is required of universities, although at the same time deep cuts in expenses are requested.
UAlg's Medicine course is the most recent example. The Accreditation Agency made "a very positive assessment", but left "three indications".
“The first has to do with the consolidation of the teaching staff. We already had an ongoing competition to hire more teachers and that is what we are going to do, because, as the course progresses, we will have more need for teachers and there are more students, because they come into operation in the following years», he explained.
The other recommendations were towards «strengthening relations with the Faculty of Medical Sciences of Universidade Nova de Lisboa», UAlg's partner in this course in the pedagogical field, and «constitution of an international scientific committee to monitor the course's development» .
As for the apparent paradox of having a state entity ordering a contract when the Government says to cut it, João Guerreiro says that this is not the only situation here.
“This contradiction exists not only in the Medicine Course. For example, the statute of the teaching career, both in the university and in the polytechnic, requires that the teaching staff have a certain percentage of Full Professors, Associates and that the number of coordinators reach a certain percentage», he said.
“But to achieve these goals, we have to have the money to open the competitions, something that doesn't happen. Therefore, there has to be a balance here on what the requirements of the statutes and the financial situation of the university are”, he exemplified.
In the 2013 State Budget proposal, which is being discussed in the specialty after its approval in general, the cuts foreseen in the direct transfers from the state to UAlg are close to 4 million euros, with the cut reaching 12,5, 2012 percent compared to XNUMX.
University of the Algarve has only not seen one of its courses accredited.
The University of Algarve will continue to offer practically all the courses it already offered, after the assessment made to its training offer by the Certification Agency. The exception is the Doctorate in Physics, which in reality is a loss shared by three higher education institutions.
«It was a course that we had in a network, organized with the University of Évora and the University of Lisbon, which was not accredited due to this dispersion of resources and the fragility that each of the universities had in the network. It was the only case, all the others were accredited», explained the dean.
As for the continuity of training and future doctors at UAlg, João Guerreiro considers the Accreditation Agency's decision to be normal, despite the recommendations that were made.
"There was no reason not to believe in the Medicine course, but as this specter hovered over some Medicine courses at other universities, there are nasty positions that want to put the University of the Algarve in this group," he said.
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