An inapplicable legislation that could leave more than a million university and professional training students without a degree in the next academic year.
Legislation should not be adopted ‘in extremis’, without consensus and without having listened to the Education Community, and above all without solving the real problems that exist so that university students can complete their education.
The real problem is not that there is no consensus with employers, but that the Education Community has not been invited to form part of the design of an academic regulation of a purely formative nature.
Legislating from an educational perspective
In our legislation, the regulation of external internships for professional training students and university students has been dealt with on different occasions, by different regulations and with different names. But it has always been designed from a training perspective, never from an employment perspective.
The common denominator has always been the firm conviction that internships in companies, institutions, in the training centres themselves, or in public and private entities, nationally or internationally, contribute to the comprehensive training of students and are an exclusively academic activity of a training nature.
Legislating on the basis of consensus
Legislating without taking into account the educational community, which designs the educational plans, cannot be a wise decision.
As we have seen, neither the Ministry of Universities, nor the Ministry of Education, nor the Conference of Rectors, nor the Conference of Social Councils, nor the Students’ Council agree with the text, which they have not even been able to debate.
Legislate to solve the real problems of the education system.
A framework that also proposes solutions to challenges that are not even on the table, such as, for example, the shortage of training placements, because the reality is that, at the moment, the education system does not have a sufficient number of quality external training placements to meet the demand from universities and professional training.
At present, there are difficulties in finding quality external training placements for all university students (especially in certain degrees and in Autonomous Communities where there are numerous university campuses and a multitude of professional training centres). For this reason, it is essential to increase the number of collaborating entities (public administrations, companies and third sector entities) that are willing to offer external placements where their collaboration is critical.
Contrary to popular belief, 65% of internships are not currently carried out in companies, but in public administrations.
If the ‘ Estatuto del Becario’ comes into being, it will mean that thousands of students will not be able to graduate next academic year, as they will have no place to do their internships, and 83 universities and 3,823 professional training centres will not be able to fulfil their syllabus.
An unenforceable legislation
The legislation will be unenforceable, as is already the case with the legislation on social security contributions for grant holders, which the universities, the Ministry of Universities and the Ministry of Education are asking for a moratorium because of the impossibility of implementing it. The Ministries themselves have already contacted the universities to inform them that, if they do not pay the social security contributions and manage them, they will not accept students on internships. We are talking about Ministries such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, for example.
Necessary legislation
We all agree on the need to establish legislation to prevent any possible fraud, but legislation must be passed to improve what already exists, in a consensual manner, without confirmation bias and with the entire educational community, not just the social partners.
The Red de Fundaciones Universidad Empresa (REDFUE) is the association of Spanish University-Enterprise Foundations that promotes cooperation between universities and companies in the areas of Research, Innovation and, fundamentally, in the management of internships as an essential part of training.
REDFUE was created in 1997 and is institutionally linked through its members to more than 15,000 companies/organisations and 41 Spanish Universities.