The rest will come from upgrading
“institutes” (he did not specify which ones) and technological
institutes to universities. Chavez offered to give Bs. 1.4 trillion for
this project to “build” these universities. Thus, the total amount
allocated will be US$ 12 million per university in the project, not
exactly a huge amount for an institution of higher learning.
But wait! While Chavez made it sound like this was a new venture, this “Mision” is actually a rehash
of one with the same name and budget announced last November.
At the time, Chavez called the country’s universities “capitalists” and
said his system would be one of quality, at which point a girl got up
and basically told him that the unit of the Armed Forces University in
her state, which she attended, did not have much infrastructure,
including no library, and was overcrowded. Chavez got out of the
impasse by saying he would consolidate and improve what was available,
but the autocrat is not a man of execution and consolidation but a man
of empty promises.
Because
you have to wonder why Chavez had to announce this project again and why
little has happened since it was first announced over ten months ago.
But hey, that is average in the robolution, fantastic hyperbole,
incredible promises and no execution and results. As Chavez told his
one time Minister of Finance (now jailed) in 2002 when the Minister
told him there was no money for new announcements: “You don’t
understand, I live off these announcements”.
But
let’s look at some of the problems with this announcement. Besides the
low budget, how is it going to be staffed? The problem facing higher
education today in Venezuela is the dwindling number of students going
for graduate degrees, as well as the brain drain among people with
graduate degrees, which find few opportunities and low salaries.
Yesterday, Benjamin Sharifker, Head of Simon Bolivar University, one of
the best in the country if not the best, said that half of the openings
they have go unfilled for lack of qualified candidates. So, how is
Chavez going to fill the thousands of positions required to teach at
all of these new or improved institutions if he can not even have his
pet project, the Bolivarian University, function properly?
In
fact, a friend of mine has been involved with one of the projects
mentioned above. She is in charge of “building” a university for 1,200
students. Finding the land, designing the buildings and hiring the
contractors. She has asked what careers there will be, how many, how
many students per classroom, how many professors and what type of
educational terms there will be. The only answer she has received is
that the classrooms should have no more than 50 students. Some project,
no?
Since he was fantasizing, Chavez repeated
that Venezuela will become a nuclear country, because he has a nuclear
commission, but much like the Mision Alma Mater, you have to wonder how
any nuclear project can be carried out with nuclear engineers and
scientists. We have heard many times about that commission but we have
yet to hear who is in it. Maybe in mathematical terms, it is simply an
empty set.
And
at the end, Chavez became the offensive individual that he has proven to
be over and over during the lat eight years, when in his infinite
ignorance and inferiority complex he criticized Venezuela’s premier
research and development Institute IVIC. He called the research being
carried out there as “not adjusted to reality”, ignoring its long
history of excellence and accomplishment.
But
does Chavez want reality? IVIC spawned during its years, INTEVEP,
Venezuela’s oil research institute which Chavez cynically and
unmercifully destroyed in very realistic fashion in 2003. It also
spawned the Engineering Institute (nothing unrealistic about that name,
no?), but more importantly, it set the standards of excellence for
academia and research in Venezuela, which propagated throughout
Venezuela’s academic system.
At one time, IVIC
was the premier research institution in Venezuela and it has generated
thousands of papers, which are immortal contributions to knowledge. It
has also graduated hundreds of Masters and Ph.D.’s in basic sciences.
And that is why they are called basic; they are not called “realistic”,
because there is no such concept. Scientists work on areas of their
interest and their research takes them to wherever it may go and many
times it goes towards unimaginable areas that it’s original creators
could not envision. That is what IVIC is suppose to do and did for
decades until politics began getting in the way of excellence and
Chavez’ ignorance simply shows that he thinks he understands what he is
doing, but can’t even tell which way he has to switch his clock so that
the sun rises earlier.
It is a measure of how
primitive and backwards Venezuela’s Government has become, that Chavez
dares to make this comment, suggesting that IVIC will also not survive
the autocrat’s destructive powers as he continues to live in his
fantasy and la-la land.
And it will be the country’s sad and irreparable loss…
