The state university system promised to generate 60,000 new places this year, in order to reduce the gap in access to higher education, announced the Minister of Education, Alejandro Gaviria, at the conclusion of a meeting this Thursday between President Gustavo Petro and the Rectors of the country’s public universities in the Casa de Nariño.
The official stressed that with this objective the National Government allocated the highest budget historically for this year. “We increased 5 percentage points above inflation, plus an additional 13,000 million pesos for development,” the Minister specified.
He added that during the meeting of the Head of State with the 34 rectors of public universities, an evaluation of the higher education goals and joint plans was made, and purposes were articulated.
“We are working within the Government to obtain more resources in the budget addition that is going to be defined this weekend at the meeting of the Council of Ministers,” said the head of the portfolio.
Likewise, the Minister indicated that a reform project to Law 30 of 1992 will be presented to the Congress of the Republic.
“We talked about the need and, on that we will work together, presenting to Congress a reform to Law 30 of the year 92, to articles 86 and 87, which will allow us to solve the problems of structural underfinancing, and leverage the goals of increases in the coverage”, explained Gaviria.
He indicated that the meeting also addressed a topic of high interest to President Petro, concerning the articulation between higher education and secondary education.
In the same context, he asserted that reference was made to the need “for the National Government to support Higher Education Regionalization programs.”
When questioned about the development of the project initiative of the University of Catatumbo, Minister Gaviria reiterated that “we are on the subject of designs, financing is already secured and the idea is to start this semester.”
In this regard, he recalled that the University of Catatumbo, which will host 3,245 students from the region, is a priority for the Government of Change and will be a pillar to advance Total Peace in that region of the country. with RSF