(Caracas) Professors with tiny salaries due to hyperinflation, students having to choose between “eat and study”, degraded infrastructure… The Central University of Venezuela is celebrating its 300th anniversary in the crisis.
“We can not believe that we have fallen so low”, moped Daniel Teran, 43, doctor of History, professor at UCV University whose monthly salary is 11 dollars, enough to buy two kilos of meat.
He survives by giving a few private lessons, collaborating on projects abroad or with translations.
“I continue by vocation,” says Antonio Silva, a 51-year-old computer professor, who earns between 8 and 10 dollars a month, while his colleagues in South America earn between 2000 and 5000 dollars.
According to the NGO International University Observatory, one in three professors does not have enough money to eat three meals a day.
Consequence: many chairs are vacant for lack of teachers.
UCV has lost 1,200 of its 9,000 employees over the past four years.
The country has sunk into an unparalleled crisis since 2013, and the per capita GDP of this oil-producing country has fallen to match that of Haiti.
Body and soul
“I can’t judge the teachers. With such conditions, it’s normal, ”says Rianny Rincones, a student.
Students are also deserting: UCV has some 35,000 students, a third less than in 2015.
“Many have to choose between eating and studying,” Teran emphasizes.
UCV was founded on December 22, 1721 during the Spanish colonial era. This architectural masterpiece was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2000, but its condition has deteriorated.
Recently, workers have taken out paint and cement to “recover this heritage”, in the words of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who accuses the UCV of having been “abandoned”.
The state has just invested $ 40 million in its repair, which is double the operating budget and salaries of the university in 2022, or 40 times the 2021 budget.
The budgets announced in bolivars at the start of the year see their real value drop as the year progresses, in a country plagued by hyperinflation which is undermining the economy.
At the end of the year, the depreciation of the bolivar is such that the allocated budget no longer corresponds to anything. The installations are therefore no longer maintained.
In 2020, a portion of nearly 300 meters of covered passages of the university collapsed without causing any injuries (the university was closed due to the pandemic).
“The university has a body and a soul”, estimates Paulina Villanueva, retired professor of the university, who speaks of “25 years of abandonment”.
Some denounce a desire, behind the work, to take control of the university.
In 2011, the Chavista authorities (named after Hugo Chavez, figure of the Latin American radical left and late predecessor of Mr. Maduro from 1999 to 2013) froze the elections in public universities like the UCV. There have been no elections since.
The rector of Simon Bolivar University, Venezuela’s other major university, passed away this year and the National Council of Universities, which emanates from the Ministry of University Education, replaced him without going through a vote.
“There is not a manu militari intervention with shootings, deaths or injuries, but we are witnessing an intervention in a trickle,” analyzes Mr. Teran, who evokes a gradual takeover of universities.
“The UCV does not surrender”, promises a letter from the rectorate for the 300e birthday.