Blow to higher education: Ortega and Murillo bury academic freedom
By Divergentes, Feb 4, 2022
Since December 2021 the dictatorship has cancelled the operational permits of 6 universities in Nicaragua, among them the Polytechnical University of Nicaragua (UPOLI), birthplace of the student rebellion of 2018. The order forms part of a plan to exercise complete control over all levels of education and eliminate critical thinking. This blow to higher education could affect the development of the country, while students and staff of the universities are plunged into uncertainty.
The news about the cancellation of the legal status of the Paulo Freire University took the university student Sabrina** by surprise. Even though she had a presentment that something might happen after seeing the elimination of another university in the news, the Hispanoamerican University (UHISPAM), she decided not to give that much importance to her concern until the day when the announcement was made public. “My reaction was surprising,” says the young woman, who was expelled from the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua (UNAN-Managua) for supporting the student protests in April 2018. She was in her last year of Business Administration in that university. Even though she tried to recover her academic history, the authorities decided to completely erase it.
As of 2019 the number of university students expelled were 147, and 108 university staff were fired from the UNAN-Managua, UNAN-León, FAREM (Multidisciplinary Regional Faculty)-Carazo, FAREM-Estelí, FAREM-Matagalpa, and FAREM-Chontales, according to statistics from the University Coordinator for Democracy and Justice (CUDJ) in their report on the human and educational rights violations of university students and teachers in Nicaragua from 2018-2019.
Sabrina found a new opportunity in the Paulo Freire University. It opened its doors not just to her, but to some fifty students who had been expelled from the UNAN and that had the profile of opponents. “Suddenly and without prior notice I saw the name of the university with its legal status cancelled. It is a little difficult to not get lost, to not get anxious, to begin to act. To ask myself what will I do, what the next step will be,” shares Sabrina, who was in the last years of a new major.
The cancellation of the legal status has been followed by an official communication from the National University Council (CNU), as the governing body of higher education, that indicates that it is committed to the educational continuity of the youth whose universities were eliminated, ensuring “quality and tuition reduction.”
The decision of the Ortega-Murillo regime to cancel the legal status of the universities of the country is part of a plan for complete control that the Sandinista dictatorship would exercise at all levels of Nicaraguan education. Of the 13 legal statuses cancelled, seven were foreign universities and were not active. Professors, former Presidents, students and political scientists consulted by DIVERGENTES agree in the fact that the ruling couple want to eliminate university pluralism and free thinking, and push the students to choose between two paths, become professionals on a campus whose political indoctrination is the same as preached in El Carmen, or to the extent possible leave the country to continue with their professional dreams.
The announcement of the cancellations of the legal status of the 13 universities is also a message for other schools, says Ernesto Medina, former president of the Americana University (UAM) and the UNAN-León. “They are saying, forget about promoting a critical spirit, the search for the truth. You here have to form people who will bow their heads. This means that we are going to form professionals who are not going to be good for absolutely anything,” he added.
The regime first cancelled the owner organizations of the Hispanoamericana University (UHISPAM) on December 13, 2021. The CNU in January reduced the annual budget assigned to the Central American University (UCA). On Wednesday February 2, 2022 the deputies loyal to Ortega decided to eliminate the legal status of the Polytechnical University of Nicaragua (UPOLI), the Dry Tropic University (UCATSE), the Nicaraguan University for Humanistic Studies (UNEH), the Popular University of Nicaragua (UPONIC) and the Paulo Freire University (UPF).
For the Political Scientist Pedro Fonseca, the decision to cancel the legal statuses as well as affect the budget of universities like the UCA and UCATSE respond to the objective of censoring the academy and all those who represent a threat to the principles and clear interests of the dictatorship.
“And, of course, there is the fact of avoiding at all costs the emergence of social movements. Historically all those social, political movements, even the revolutionary ones, have emerged from the large, small universities, with financing, without financing, where there is critical thinking, education, freedom, rights and insubordination,” explained Fonseca, who remembers that for many years the concept of academic freedom was very popular in Nicaragua.
The regime, according to Fonseca, wants to control freedom of thought and crush critical spirit, as it has done with fundamental freedoms in Nicaragua. Since September 2018 a demonstration in the streets has not been permitted in the country, when the dictatorship imposed a de facto police state.
“Everything that is happening is part of a strategy, because in the end the dictatorship did not have direct influence over these universities that have been shut down. They only had it in those universities where they have access not only through the traditional state structures like the CNU, the Ministry of Education or the Army, but through grassroots structures like the Sandinista Youth, neighborhood community organizations which have served the dictatorship,” argued Fonseca.
Medina points out that the first impact of this decision is anxiety in the student community for not knowing how their academic future will be resolved. The second, but not any less important, is the damage that the dictatorship could be doing to the future development of the country.
“The future of a country is going to depend on the education that its population has and to the fact that it might have access to science, technology, which is the current engine of development. And closing universities in one blow, obviously no country resists that. And I am unaware of any precedent where it has happened because of an administrative decision, because of highly questionable technical arguments, that it has been decided to close and leave in a horrible uncertainty more than 5,000 students,” says the former president of the UAM.
That uncertainty is already affecting the students. Diego, for example, used to study in the UPOLI in the last year of a major that he prefers to not reveal out of fear of being identified. After hearing about the news of the shut down, he spoke with a friend who is in the third year of a major in the School of Economic Sciences at the UHISPAM. “He told me that they continue in the same place, but that the CNU and the UNAN have [taken over] the administration.”
Diego does not understand why the Government eliminated the legal status of the UPOLI. He speculates that it was revenge because on that campus a student rebellion “was cooked up” that kept the Sandinista regime in check for several weeks. “I do not know whether I want to continue here. In the end they (the dictatorship) are going to want to get us into their politics and I think that this should not happen in universities,” shared this young student, who is thinking about looking for a scholarship to continue his professionalization in another country.
Sabrina is not thinking about continuing her studies in the same university under the control of the CNU and UNAN. First, because her case is different from that of Diego or his friend. “It is a secret to no one that we students who were expelled from the UNAN with the profiles of opposition we cannot go and smile at the CNU and tell them, `well here I come for you to find a place for me´, when these authorities have been the same ones who have prevented us from being included.”
Even though she still does not know whether she will try to continue her studies in another university, what this university student is clear about is that any university that stands up to the regime will be eliminated from that path in order to continue with the strategy of completely dominating higher education.
“They aspire for complete power to prevent a rebellion like that in 2018 from being repeated. Critical thinking bothers it, student curiosity is something that education promotes and they believe that they can avoid that by making sure to have all universities under their power,” said Sabrina.
The UNEN doctrine in the universities
The control that the Government intends to exercise in the universities that now will be under the administrative responsibility of the CNU, and in the case of UHISPAM, also of the UNAN, would be linked to reproducing the submissive doctrine that the National Union of Students of Nicaragua (UNEN) have spread in public schools. Fonseca thinks that the UNEN doctrine, a student organization dominated by Sandinism, will now not only be shown in the higher education taught in public universities, but on the campuses that would be reassigned to be administered by the CNU.
“What the regime is promoting is a partisan transformation of education, so much so that it has gotten to controlling who studies and who does not. How history is studied, what people and what events, even what should be studied in science in general,” he warned.
The political scientist warns that the cancellation of the legal statuses is not just the implementation of a political and authoritarian punishment, but it is a threat to the rest of the universities that still have the opportunity to continue functioning, in addition to the uncertainty of an eventual cancellation if they do not do what the dictatorship orders.
“If they do not behave in accordance with the guidelines of the regime, probably in six months or a year we are going to find out that in Nicaragua there are going to exist one or two universities. Probably next week we will be talking about the expropriation of the universities. It is a possibility, and it is very serious. Clearly, we are living in a stage of threat and can expect anything, including the worst,” Fonseca analyzed.
Doctor Medina does not dismiss that the decision of the regime might be based on the role that these universities played during and after the rebellion of April 2018, the participation that their students had in the protests, and the expressions of justice that emerged on the campuses. “Since 2019 all these universities were giving up or afraid of expressing themselves, were not saying absolutely anything, but someone had a thorn in their side and decided that it was the time to take it out, and at the same time took advantage of the moment to tell the rest of the universities what the rules of the game are: do not see, hear or say anything,” stated Medina.
Blow to the future of the country and its development
The rejection of the decision of the regime has been noteworthy on university campuses and on social networks. Not just because it means a complete change for the students who were following their majors in those schools, but because it implies a blow to the future of the country. This Carlos Tunnermann Berheim knows well, lawyer, educator and former president of the UNAN, who lamented the decision of the regime, because everything that affects higher education in the country affects its human and sustainable development as well.
“The studies and analyses that have been done about the role of higher education as a key factor for development show that there is a cause-and-effect relationship, and direct cause between the improvement in the quality and relevancy of higher education in a country, and the possibilities for its human and sustainable development. So, all that goes in the direction of affecting higher education of a country affects not just the future of the youth but the future of the country itself,” said Tunnermann.
The new blow in education ends up pushing the country toward the political, social and economic abyss, Fonseca feels, who says that the current situation does not just have an impact on the people who cannot access education, but that in the medium and long term, you could be talking about a society without education, without technical and professional skills and without the capacity to structure critical thinking.
“And this is the worst thing that can happen to a country,” maintains Medina, who compares the schools after the cancellation of the universities with military bases. “Here we are going to have universities with incapable leaders and with young people who are going to be a type of zombies who are not going to be good for absolutely anything when the country faces enormous challenges. We will have generations incapable of being able to deal with these challenges that have to do with education, science, technology, innovation,” lamented the academic.
Fonseca has few hopes that certain university majors might be touched by the political doctrine of the regime. Even though he sounds optimistic when he refers to technical professions which maybe would not be so affected, immediately he backs down when he remembers the partisan influences that exist in the student environment that have to do with nepotism and corruption.
“It is useless to have an engineering university that offers the best major if we have a corrupt administration, if we do not have transparency and if we do not have accountability, and if the students do not have access to education because of their conditions, their merits and their achievements, but because of a party ID card. So, it is a very broad phenomenon that transcends the political aspect, but also transcends the administrative and technical in general,” he explained.
Professor in the uncertainty
A professor from one of the universities whose legal status was cancelled and that agreed to speak with DIVERGENTES under the condition of anonymity said that his greatest fear is being fired because he always was critical about the actions of the Government. “Now that they are going to take control, I could be seen as a stone,” says the teacher.
Like this professor, others have expressed the same fear, precisely because of the freedom of thought that they have on their campuses, it always was fundamental not just for the education taught, but for the social gatherings that were organized out of the blue or recreational areas within the universities.
“Many do not want to continue. Others have to stay because they are providing support to their homes. What I believe is that after all of this we are going to have universities where all of us are going to keep quiet out of fear that some authority might hear that we are criticizing the Government. Higher education is at risk and the formation of our future generations,” lamented the professor.
* pseudonym