The Secretary of Education of the Nation, Carlos Torrendelwas cited by the Education Commission of the Chamber of Deputies in the middle of the parliamentary debate on university financing. This was confirmed by the president of the commission, Alejandro Finocchiaro (Pro).
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There are several projects that revolve around this topic and even the Union for the Homeland bloc requested to incorporate the initiatives related to the restitution of the National Teacher Incentive Fund.
The commission had a new information session with guests linked to the university union sectors. Among them Sonia Alesso from CTERA; Carlos Defeo from Conadu; Daniel Ricci of Fedun; Norberto Heyaca of Fagdut; Piera Fernández from the Argentine University Federation; Lucille Levy of FUBA; Alejandro Gaggero from Acij; Tomás García de Cece UBA; Marcelo Creta from UTE CTERA; Nicolás Roldán de Fusada; Anabella Mateo from Funnoba; Ileana Celotto of AGD UBA; Marcelo Bornand of Apuba Social Sciences; Óscar Vallejos from Conadu Histórica; Yamile Socolovsky from Conadu; Macarena Videla de Mpe; Luca Bonfante from the Philosophy and Letters Student Center and Lucia Ortega, professor of Economic Sciences at UBA.
Representatives of national universities also presented, Daniel Vega, rector of the Universidad del Sur; Dario Kusinsky, rector of Unpaz; Marcelo Melo, director of the Hospital de Clínicas; Patricio Grande from the National University of Luján; Germán Pinazo, vice-rector of the National University of General Sarmiento and Roxana Puebla, rector of UNPA.
The radical deputy Marcela Coli told TN that “It was important to know the intimate situation of each university based on what was expressed by its actors and how they are experiencing the adjustment of the funds that are destined to finance university life.â€
An opinion on the financing projects could be signed in 15 days. Representative Danya Tavela unified the UCR space in her initiative regarding «declaring the budgetary emergency of the national university system in the year 2024, and mitigating, given the increase in the costs of essential goods and services, the impact that “The same costs they have for the salary commitments and operating expenses of all national universities.” She wrote in her project signed by, among others, Facundo Manes, MartÃn Tetaz and Mariela Coletta.
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At UxP, deputy Lorena Pokoik hopes that this debate «is not déjà vu and that progress is made in consensus and agreements for university financing.» Germán Martínez’s bench has already unified initiatives from its own bloc prepared by deputies Pablo Carro and Julia Strada.
While the deputies of the Federal Innovation bloc, headed by Pamela Calletti along with Yolanda Vega, Yamila Ruiz, Carlos Fernández and Alberto Arrua, asked for «the maintenance of educational financing of universities», and an update of the budget items based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI), since January 1 of this year.
The deputies seek political support in the Education Commission with the different initiatives. They will try to unify the proposals in a single opinion and convene the Budget Commission headed by José Luis Espert to move forward with their sights set on the Chamber’s premises.