Budgetary inequality among regional public universities violates the right to education

The Ombudsman's Office warns

The National Government must guarantee high-quality accreditation processes for regional public universities

-The Deputy Ombudsman for Constitutional and Legal Affairs requests that the articles that discriminate in the distribution of resources and the awarding of high-quality certifications to regional public universities be declared conditionally constitutional.

A lawsuit filed by constitutional lawyer Camilo Blanco (file D-12127), who considers several articles of the law that allocates resources for regional public universities to be unconstitutional and discriminatory, led the Ombudsman's Office, through the Delegate for Constitutional and Legal Affairs, to issue a ruling relevant to the future of regional education in our country.

The lawsuit alleges that Article 86 of Law 30 of 1992 violates the right to equality, the right to education, and the principle of university autonomy, and constitutes discriminatory treatment of regional state universities. According to the constitutional expert, the resource allocation system disadvantages those who receive less funding. These transfers are made in accordance with the 1993 revenue and expenditure budgets.

The plaintiff also considered unconstitutional Law 1753 of 2015, which discriminates against Icetex loans for students from regional universities, since they can only access them if they come from educational entities certified as high quality.

The Ombudsman's Office concluded the following points:

“The lack of budget in state university entities, generated as a consequence of what is established in the second paragraph of Article 86 of Law 30 of 1993, violates the right to education, prevents the requirements of affordability, accessibility, adaptability and acceptability from being met.

2. It limits the exercise of University Autonomy in terms of the distribution of resources and 3. It hinders institutional growth in terms of coverage and certification.”.

Regarding article 61 of law 1753 of 2015, the Ombudsman warns: “it puts regional public universities at a disadvantage compared to those with high-quality accreditation because they have more resources.”.

For this reason, the Delegate of Constitutional and Legal Affairs of the Ombudsman's Office, Paula Robledo Silva, considers it necessary to declare conditionally enforceable, articles 86 of law 30 of 1992 and article 61 of Law 1753 of 2015.

The first reason is that one should not only consider the budgetary designations for income and expenses of 1993, but also the needs for improvement, research in quality accreditations, innovation and the well-being of the educational community.

Secondly, it is understandable that the National Government must guarantee the necessary resources to regional public universities to begin their high-quality accreditation processes.

On August 8th, during the official high-quality recognition of the Bachelor's Degree in Education with an emphasis in Social Sciences, the Rector of the University of Cundinamarca, Adriano Muñoz Barrera, stated: “We have significant disadvantages that we must transform into strengths, such as the inequity with which the Colombian State has treated us for a long time. For example, each student at the university receives only 1,300,000 pesos, and to this day, the transfers for 1993 and 1994 have not been paid, which is why a lawsuit has been filed.”.

The process continues in the Constitutional Court.

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