End of the line for non-Bolivarian higher education in Venezuela
Venezuela’s universities feel the sting of economic and political crisis
By Rachelle Krygier and Anthony Faiola November 17 at 6:00 AM
CARACAS — Nicolás Bianco, vice rector of the Central University of Venezuela, sat under a wall of framed academic honors, gazing out his office window. The sprawling institution founded in 1721 once teemed with students. But the 74-year-old was silent as he surveyed the near-empty campus outside.
“How do you explain to students what real college life is supposed to be like?” said Bianco, an alumni of the university, the country’s largest. “They’ll never know.”
Venezuela’s economic and political crisis has sparked food and medical shortages, the world’s highest inflation rate and allegations of a power grab by the ruling socialists. But it is also threatening the country’s future by ravaging higher education.
Universities here — especially the Central University of Venezuela, or UCV in Spanish — have long ranked among Latin America’s best. As recently as 2010, Venezuela was rated sixth in the region in the production of academic research. UCV’s faculty members in particular were recognized internationally — among them the award-winning poet Rafael Cadenas.
That national preeminence is now in jeopardy. Under the worsening financial pressure, students at some universities are dropping out in droves and many top-level teachers have joined a broader exodus of emigrating professionals.
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The government has taken various steps to reinforce its control over the autonomous universities, which critics say are among the few outlets left for free intellectual thought in Venezuela. In 2010, funding of university research by private companies was banned. Since that year, no new majors have been approved. Internal elections to choose new rectors have also been prohibited.
“Critical thinking is under threat,” said Ligia Bolívar, a sociology professor at Andrés Bello Catholic University, a private institution in Caracas.
The Education Ministry did not respond to a request for comment. In September, however, Hugbel Roa, the Maduro-appointed minister for higher education, said that university enrollment had increased in recent years while condemning what he characterized as anti-government rabble-rousing on some campuses.
“No authority should permit universities to become trenches for chaos or destruction,” Roa said.
If enrollment has gone up, as Roa claims, the rise appears to be confined to pro-government universities. The student body at UCV, for instance, has declined from 51,000 in 2008 to 44,000 this year, according to officials there. Over the same period, the number of its professors shrank from 5,600 to 2,600 — half of whom have become part-timers.
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