PSD does not want Algarve municipalities to fund increased vacancies in Medicine

Cristóvão Norte, Rui Cristina and Ofélia Ramos, PSD deputies elected by the Algarve, want the Government to finance the increase in the number of vacancies in the Medicine course at the University of Algarve and not the municipalities, which are not obliged to make this effort ».

In a note sent to the newsrooms, the Social Democratic deputies said that "they became aware of the intention to sign a protocol to increase the number of vacancies in the Medicine course at the University of Algarve", which is "a worthy initiative of the University and important for the region".

However, they emphasize, "the protocol in question includes the Algarve municipalities that assume 50% of the charge, an effort of 3 million euros over the next 6 years."

At this point, added the PSD parliamentarians, "the protocol is pending" and, "having already registered a first increase in the number of students in the current academic year, the course has no guaranteed funding".

The PSD considers this an “undesirable and penalizing situation for the Algarve”.

"It is understandable that municipalities, with no alternative, wanting to contribute to the development of the region, have difficulty in rejecting this weight", but, recalled the deputies, "higher education is a competence of the State and not of municipalities, so irreducibility to finance the extension of the course by the Government is a discriminatory decision, which despises the region, and which has to be revised».

Municipalities, the parliamentarians continued, «particularly at a time of crisis, have less means to support the many citizens who need and face up to all their powers and the policy followed by the Government in the Algarve of putting costs in the hands of the municipalities and transfer nothing, or very little, to the region should be interrupted».

For all this, the deputies of the PSD Algarve formulated a question to the executive on this matter "demanding that the Government assume its responsibilities and not impose this effort on those who do not have this obligation".