viernes, 10 de diciembre de 2010

Next meeting with DGU: everyone is invited


The next meeting between pre-docs, Directorate General of Universities (DGU) and vice chancellors of the universities in Catalonia will be held on Monday 13 December at 17:00 hours in the proceedings of the DGU.

Although only four doctoral students will participate in the meeting, all the pre-docs of Catalunya will concentrate on 13 December from 16:30 to 17:30 h at the gates of the DGU (Via Laietana, 33), to make our voices heard just as the beginning of the meeting takes place.

In order to contextualize this next meeting, the compromises that were reached in the previous session (November 4), are:

* The DGU would provide calculations of the average cost of a graduate student for college, taking into account all types of pre-docs (PhD in science, humanities, from centers outside the university , etc.).

* The DGU would answer about the possibility of consulting the budget reports and economic and social impact reports that preceed the price decree.

* The DGU would expose to the Interuniversity Council of Catalonia (which was scheduled to meet during this time between meetings with doctoral students) the pre-doc's request to modify the decree in effect by reviewing the increase in enrollment fees and instead applying the same fee as the previous year plus the corresponding increase according to the limits established by the General Conference of University Policy (1.5% -5.5%).

From all this, today doctoral students have access to the costs per pre-doc calculated by the DGU in collaboration with (available here).

Regarding the consult of the reports accompanying the decree by the pre-doc representatives, chances are they can not be consulted before the meeting takes place, as the DGU has granted the first appointment for consultation on 14 December (one day after the meeting.)

As things are, the pre-docs will attend the meeting:

* With some dubious calculations of the annual per thesis for the universities that have been prepared today and not when the decree establishing public prices was being prepared.

* With a disturbing question: If the calculations of the costs of a doctorate have been developed to date, on what is based this setting of annual registration to 400 euros ?

* Without the chance of consulting the budget reports and economic and social impact reports of Decree 98/2010.

* With the suspicion of a negative response by the Interuniversity Council of Catalonia as the possibility to modify the decree in effect.


Even so, we will attend the meeting, since by all means at our disposal, we will continue to denounce the unlawful and unjustified increase in doctoral tuition fees that has taken place this year, the situation of unfairness compared to other regions of Spain and to other universities. We will continue to denounce, in short, the most precarious situation to which this decree has brought us: the straw that finally breaks the camel.