The public universities of Catalonia will not have to bear the extra cost of the scholarship holders’ contribution

2024-01-05 09:00:58

Barcelona The year 2024 has begun with a major administrative crisis at universities throughout the State. The entry into force of the obligation to register with Social Security for all students who do unpaid internships – those who do paid internships already had to do so – has shot up administrative work and in Catalonia many universities have seen overwhelmed by the situation. Faced with this situation, the Department of Research and Universities has undertaken to assume this expense.

To deal with this increase in management, in some cases universities had been forced to hire new administration and services staff (PAS) and new software. A fact that, added to the same expense of the scholarship holders’ contribution, has generated an additional cost of around two and a half million euros for the Catalan public universities.

The reason is that, although the Spanish government subsidizes 95% of these contributions, the rule says that the remaining 5% must be assumed by the institutions receiving the scholarship or “the training center” and, the refusal of the majority of companies to meet this expense, finally the rectors of the Catalan universities decided to assume the remaining cost of the contributions of their students in practice.

For this reason, the Department of Research and Universities (on whom this change does not depend) has taken a step forward: A few months ago, Councilor Quim Nadal already committed to the rectors of public universities to assume the cost overrun generated by the entry into force of the new rule. Although, for the time being, the commitment had only been made internally, as ARA has been able to learn, Nadal undertook to have the Government bear both the cost of the scholarship holders’ contribution and the cost overrun that has assuming the increase in administrative management by public universities.

Despite this commitment, the department explains that they are still waiting to see if the Ministry of Universities will assume the cost of the fees, since, in the case of vocational training students, this expense has been fully assumed by the ministry of Education. Despite this waiting period, the ministry assures that they will assume the extra cost of administrative procedures and, if necessary, also those of the contributions of the University of Barcelona (UB), the Autonomous University (UAB), the Polytechnic of Catalonia (UPC), Pompeu Fabra (UPF), Girona (UdG), Lleida (UdL) and Rovira i Virgili (URV).

Many doubts to solve

Sources from the Universities department say they are in favor of the measure, but recognize the “complexity it has” which, in principle, should be clarified in the coming months. In fact, this is one of the reasons why the Spanish government itself has extended the deadline for notifying scholarship holders of Social Security registration by another three months. Despite this, the main Catalan universities report that the disorientation they suffer from this regulation is very important.

“They haven’t told us how to do it, or what support we have, or which PAS places we can call for, or what special treatment we can have to make the process simpler,” criticizes the rector of the University of Barcelona, ​​Joan Guàrdia. He explains that the UB has 14,000 students doing internships at the same time. “Do you know the volume of administrative management that this implies?” he laments. An administrative overload that is also reported by the UAB. In fact, beyond the economic issue, and the increase in management, it is this “how to do it” that is causing the most anxiety in the universities that criticize the lack of clear instructions from the ministry.

“The first information did not arrive until July and, nevertheless, as time has progressed, doubts and cases have appeared that are still pending resolution or that involve contradictory information”, says the vice-chancellor of Academic Planning and of UPF Students, Sergi Torner. Several universities state that they have doubts about how to act with international internships, what to do when a student only does weekend internships, or how to do it in the case of medical students who do three-day intensives in a hospital and the the following week they change destinations. In addition, Torner also exposes one more problem: “It remains to be resolved the impact that registration with Social Security will have on those students who are receiving some type of benefit such as unemployment, disability or the minimum vital income “. For all that, in the case of Pompeu, the vice-chancellor confirms that “the UPF will not manage the registration of students in Social Security until it has clear and unequivocal instructions on which students should be included and which not”.

Although from the UPC they are not having administrative saturation problems because almost all of their students do paid internships and, therefore, they are already used to registering them with the Social Security, their rector is very critical with the fact that the Spanish government has not assumed the cost of the scholarship holders’ contributions. “We understand that this discrimination against university students is not justified, and the universities, which the government itself recognizes are underfunded, have to face a cost for which they do not have resources”, criticizes Daniel Crespo, who is also president of the Catalan Association of Public Universities (ACUP). And he insists: “The universities will deal with the cost and the management because internships are essential for the training of university graduates. Can anyone imagine that a doctor does not do internships during his studies?”.