Higher education student associations argued this Wednesday, December 17, that the degradation of residences is the result of “chronic underfunding of social action” and the “absence of a consistent strategy for investment, maintenance and enhancement” of buildings.
Around two dozen academic associations and federations reacted to the statements made by the Minister of Education, Science and Innovation, Fernando Alexandre, made on Tuesday during the presentation of the new model of social action for Higher Education.
“Academic residences must be spaces of integration, well-being and promotion of academic success, and not, as they currently are, and have always been in Portugal, spaces where students with lower incomes are placed”, said Fernando Alexandre, to defend his proposal to give displaced students the freedom to choose between staying in a residence or a private room, granting the same monetary support.
Fernando Alexandre argued that residences must have students from various social strata, otherwise, being used “only by people who have no voice, who have lower incomes, for management reasons, the service degrades”, he explained later in an interview with RTP.
Representatives of some of the country’s largest universities warned today of the danger that some statements could be interpreted as an association between social vulnerability and degradation of public services.
The students argued that the residences are deteriorating simply “because they have not been taken care of”, criticizing the “chronic underfunding of social action” and the “absence, over the years, of a consistent strategy for investment, maintenance and enhancement of these infrastructures”, reads the statement signed by the academic associations of the universities of Coimbra, Madeira, Algarve, Aveiro, Beira Interior, Évora, Minho, Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro.
“Students with lower incomes are not the problem of social action”, they add in the statement also signed by the Lisbon Academic Federation and the federations representing polytechnic and private education students.
A similar position was taken by another student association movement made up of the student associations of the Escola Superior de Artes e Design das Caldas da Rainha, the Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa and the Escola Superior de Teatro e Cinema da Faculdade de Belas Artes da Universidade do Porto.
“Less excuses, more public residences” is the title of the statement sent to the newsrooms, in which they repudiate Fernando Alexandre’s statements and also highlight that the residences of social action services are dilapidated due to the lack of rehabilitation works by the Government.
These students consider that the minister’s statements constitute a “regrettable demonstration of disdain for students”, reads the note also signed by the student associations of the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon, the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences of the New University of Lisbon and the Instituto Superior de Psicologia Aplicada.
The student association movement promises to “start a second semester in struggle” for students’ rights.
In a clarification sent to newsrooms on Tuesday, the Ministry of Education assured that Fernando Alexandre does not consider “that students with lower incomes are responsible for the degradation of residences” and that the problem lies in the “management of residences”.
The ministry wanted to give priority to displaced first-year students, regardless of whether they were scholarship holders or not, but the proposal was criticized by university and polytechnic officials and the Government backed down.