The Minister of Education and Universities, Antoni Vera, and the Director General of Universities and Higher Artistic Education, Sebastià Massanet, today attended the General Conference on University Policy, which was held at the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities in Madrid with the Minister Diana Morant.

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A joint PBAU with 10 other autonomous communities

After the meeting, Minister Vera explained that the Government of the Balearic Islands sees the proposal to create a single PBAU as feasible in terms of structure, not content, and has agreed to promote it together with the Valencian Community, the Region of Murcia, Andalusia, Aragon, Cantabria, Galicia, Castile and León, Extremadura, La Rioja, and the Community of Madrid. Councillor Vera said that with the unified PBAU test, “we can establish a level playing field for all students in Spain that will benefit students from the Balearic Islands who are forced to go to other autonomous communities to study certain university degrees that are not taught on the islands”.

Furthermore, the councillor added that a single PBAU was one of the proposals in the government programme of the current autonomous government. It should be added that during this academic year 2023-2024, and according to data provided by the University of the Balearic Islands, almost 1,000 students have chosen to study their university studies in other autonomous communities.

On the other hand, the councillor also indicated that the Regional Ministry of Education and Universities has sent a letter today to the Ministry of Education to request the convening of the Sectorial Conference of Education to discuss the reinforcement of resources for the teaching of mathematics and reading and writing, as well as the poor academic results that were reflected in the PISA report.

With regard to the General Conference on University Policy, Councillor Vera explained that the creation of a working group has been put on the table to be able to deploy the Organic Law of the University System (LOSU) “which has many questions and which is causing a lot of concern in the universities”.

In addition, the councillor asked Minister Morant that the funding of 1% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) established by the LOSU “should be well funded by the Spanish Government”. Vera also asked the government to take into account the insularity of our community “since the University of the Balearic Islands is the backbone of the islands and we need extra funding for university residences, housing, travel and the provision of university infrastructures”.