Nicaragua approves education reform seen as move to destroy university autonomy

By Ismael Lopez

MANAGUA (Reuters) – Nicaragua’s Parliament, dominated by President Daniel Ortega, on Thursday authorised reforms that educators warn will weaken the autonomy of universities amid new policies that reinforce the government’s handle in excess of curriculums, plans and chairs.

The regulation establishes the National Council of Universities (CNU) as the principal governing system, overruling the teams of tutorial professionals from each individual institution that held individuals powers.

The rule was authorised with 75 votes in favor and 14 abstentions.

“This reform kills the autonomy of universities that price so a lot blood in Nicaragua. The government now controls the CNU, which till now was only an advisory physique to universities,” said tutorial Ernesto Medina, previous rector of the Nationwide Autonomous College of Nicaragua, the country’s greatest university.

The pro-authorities deputies argued that the reform seeks to bolster larger training and the job of the CNU as a governing overall body of universities.

The reform also cuts community funding to the Jesuit Central American University (UCA), a crucial establishment with the authorities and cradle of the nationwide anti-federal government protests that broke out in the Central American state in 2018.

The UCA was provided in the CNU and granted public funding some months right before Ortega’s Sandinista Countrywide Liberation Front (FSLN) social gathering remaining energy in 1990.

The UCA did not quickly respond to a ask for for remark. It has explained that in 2018 the condition granted the university $8.1 million for its functions, an allocation that has been reduced through the years and dropped to $38,000 in 2022.

“It is a revenge in opposition to the UCA for the purpose its college students performed in the rebel of April 2018,” stated constitutional regulation professor Maria Asuncion Moreno.

The reform integrated into the CNU three universities made by the governing administration in the past months and expelled UCA, where Ortega and 3 of his young children examined.

The Nicaraguan Parliament has shut 14 private universities in the previous few months, stating they failed to fulfill their obligations to the governing system, while the opposition has explained it is a government’s attempt to get command of universities significant of Ortega.

(Reporting by Ismael Lopez Writing by Valentine Hilaire Enhancing by Leslie Adler)