The PSIB accepts the private university of Mallorca, but says it "will be vigilant"

PalmThe PSIB strongly opposed the creation of a private university affiliated with CEU San Pablo in Mallorca. However, it accepts the creation of the Private University of Mallorca (UMAC) promoted by the private higher education center ADEMA. The project received the endorsement of the Parliament this Tuesday with the favorable votes of the PP and Vox and the abstention of the PSIB, while MÉS per Mallorca, Més per Menorca and Unides Podem voted against it. "This law is not our project, it has shortcomings and risks and we will be vigilant," defended the socialist deputy Mercedes Garrido.

Garrido has argued that the debate "is not the same" as that of CEU San Pablo. "They are different projects, with different paths," he explained. While the former has been carried out with "dubious urban planning operations" (the Government wanted to speed it up by declaring it a strategic project), he said, the ADEMA project, an organization chaired by Diego González, former general secretary of PSIB in Palma and former general director during the mandate of Francesc Antich, "has been done without impositions." Furthermore, he said that the UMAC one is the only project that "complements" the training offer of the UIB.

In parallel, Garrido has called on the Government to "strengthen public universities." In fact, the PSIB has introduced an amendment to the text stating that, despite the creation of this center, the Universitat de les Illes Balears (UIB) shall have "preferential status in the formalization of agreements linking with public hospitals and health centers".

The PP deputy Lourdes Curtó has defended the text, presented by her group. The PP has accepted numerous amendments from various groups, even some from MÉS per Mallorca, although the eco-sovereignists have voted against the law. According to Curtó, the university will serve to "give our university system more coherence and legal capacity": "It expands opportunities without renouncing rigor".

Vox: "At a private university, you come to learn Spanish"

The spokesperson for Vox, Manuela Cañadas, defended her group's vote in favor of creating "a university model of freedom and excellence." In the same vein, she said that the UIB "has been used as an ideological laboratory by the left and pan-Catalanism." "It is the end of 'wokism' in the classrooms," she said. In parallel, she advocated for classes to be held in Spanish: "One comes to a private university to learn Spanish, and at most the language of the region."

From MÉS per Mallorca, Maria Ramon thanked the groups for incorporating some of their amendments to "economically shield" the UIB and "avoid unfair competition." However, she justified her vote against the private university because "there is no accredited structural need" that justifies the operation. "It represents a change in model," she said, and advocated for public education. José María García (Unides Podem) expressed himself in the same way, saying that the PP and Vox model "puts spokes in the wheels of working families": "The situation is not right for establishing private universities." Meanwhile, from Més per Menorca, Joana Gomila accused the PP of making "a preferential treatment by implementing a private university in the Islands," and lamented that the difficulties of Minorcans in accessing higher education are not addressed first.