College students from a number of universities instructed to resubmit their scholarship requests by June 20 to the Legal professional Normal’s Workplace, now charged with “administering” the colleges.
HAVANA TIMES – College scholarships in Nicaragua have been suspended in the previous couple of weeks, and college students requested to resubmit their requests to the Legal professional Normal’s Workplace (Procuraderia Normal de la Republica, o PGR). Latest adjustments to the Legislation for the Autonomy of Establishments of Greater Schooling has assigned this entity the “regency” of the general public universities.
Essential adjustments to the Autonomy Legislation have been permitted within the Nicaraguan Nationwide Meeting in early June. Earlier than the textual content of the brand new legislation was even printed within the official La Gaceta on Monday, June 9, 2025, college students from a number of public universities in Nicaragua have been denouncing on social media the cancellation of their grants.
A video launched by college college students, whose id has been protected for safety causes, notes that – as of the legislation reform – tutorial scholarships are to be administered by the Legal professional Normal’s Workplace. The pictures present college students lining up at a department of this establishment, the place they have been allegedly taken by college authorities to provoke a brand new scholarship software course of.
“They took us at 3:00 p.m. and we left at 6:00 p.m., leaving a number of nonetheless ready for his or her flip, as a result of the strains have been tremendous lengthy,” commented a pupil.
The college college students’ denunciation was confirmed on June 10, when a name for functions to tutorial scholarships supplied by the Legal professional Normal’s Workplace was posted on the official net pages of the Nationwide Engineering College, the Managua department of the Nicaraguan Nationwide Autonomous College (UNAN), and the Nationwide Polytechnic College (UNP).
Following the scholars’ unique posting of their state of affairs, sympathizers of the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo referred to as out the college college students’ posts as pretend. “False. They’re solely asking the scholars to satisfy yet one more requirement, in order that later their documentation may be filed with the Legal professional Normal’s Workplace,” the feedback learn.
Based on the posted course of, candidates for educational scholarships should now write a letter of software addressed to the self-appointed “co-presidents” Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo; connect their registration type, transcript, copy of id card; and full a type offered by the Legal professional Normal’s Workplace. They need to then ship these paperwork to that workplace throughout working hours. The appliance course of for educational scholarships ends on June 20, 2025.
Legal professional Normal’s Workplace now in command of the general public college system
Based on the change within the legislation, the Legal professional Normal’s Workplace, along with the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit score, will take cost of “all monetary, budgetary and accountability facets.”
Previous to the reform, the Ministry of Finance was chargeable for approving the coverage for distributing the funds allotted to the colleges – a sum representing 6% of the nationwide funds by Nicaraguan legislation. Now, it lists the 12 universities that can obtain cash from the nationwide funds but additionally leaves open the potential for allocating assets to personal universities. The executive powers have been moved to the Legal professional Normal.
“In monetary, budgetary, and accountability issues, the colleges, will comply with the rules issued by the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit score, and might be below the regencia [regency] of the Legal professional Normal’s Workplace,” reads the amended Autonomy Legislation.
Ernesto Medina, tutorial and former rector of the UNAN in Leon and of the non-public Americana College, defined that it’s the primary time the Legal professional Normal’s Workplace seems inside the Autonomy Legislation. He warned that if the phrase “regente” (authority) is interpreted as outlined within the Spanish Royal Academy of the Language, then this entity is being named to “govern” the colleges.
“If the Legal professional Normal’s Workplace goes to have regency, it means they’ll be governing the colleges,” he continued, “all through your entire textual content, the reformed legislation speaks of the function of the Technical Secretariat and the Nationwide Council of Rectors [not of the Attorney General’s Office]. So we don’t know what they actually need, they will’t categorical it, and as an alternative they’re complicated every part.”
Over 50,000 college grants
In 2023, the annual statistical report issued by the now-extinct Nationwide Council of Universities (CNU) reported “55,764 pupil scholarships at a nationwide degree.” Nevertheless, that doc doesn’t specify which of these scholarships have been for the general public universities and which for attending non-public universities.
In 2024, stories from official sources knowledgeable that 19,650 scholarships have been awarded for the general public universities straight below the CNU. Of those, 4,340 have been scholarships which included room, board, well being care and different companies. The opposite 15,310 have been “exterior grants” that merely consisted of a small sum awarded to college students for his or her transportation charges. The general public universities in Nicaragua are free.
In January 2025, Ramona Rodriguez, former CNU president, declared that between the CNU scholarships and an extra 28,000 scholarships supplied to the non-public universities, the full variety of scholarships awarded in Nicaragua would attain 50,000 this 12 months.
No hint of college autonomy
The regime’s adjustments within the legislation additionally eradicated the Nationwide Council of Universities (CNU) and the Nationwide Schooling System’s Council for Analysis and Accreditation, which in idea loved a sure diploma of autonomy. Of their place, the legislation now establishes the Technical Secretariat for Consideration to Universities, which is subordinated to the Presidency of the Republic.
The legislation now transfers “the monetary and patrimonial assets, actual property and property, automobiles, laptop and workplace gear and methods, furnishings and every other gadgets registered to the Nationwide Council of Universities (CNU) and the Nationwide Council of Analysis and Accreditation of the Nationwide Academic System (CNEA) to the Technical Secretariat for Consideration to the Universities,” reads the third article.
The subordination of the Technical Secretariat to the Presidency is acknowledged explicitly in one other article of the legislation: “The Technical Secretariat for Consideration to the Universities is created below the sectorial management of the Presidency and can act because the Secretariat of the Nationwide Council of College Rectors.”
Among the many capabilities of the Technical Secretariat described is the responsibility to “submit a draft of the Nationwide Coverage of Greater Schooling to the Presidency for its approval.” This direct subordination to the presidency didn’t exist till the latest change within the legislation.
To Medina, this reform reveals that the regime “doesn’t know what it needs and hasn’t discovered essentially the most ultimate approach [it desires] to completely management the colleges. He recalled that the regime has made “three in depth reforms” to the Legislation for Universitry Autonomy.
Ever extra universities relying on the 6% funds allocation
The adjustments additionally incorporate the brand new universities created by means of the confiscation of personal universities into the pool of establishments that can divide the full assets allotted – by legislation, 6% of the nationwide funds of Nicaragua.
The colleges that already obtained a portion of those monies are:
- Nationwide Nicaraguan Autonomous College in Leon
- Nationwide Nicaraguan Autonomous College in Managua
- Nationwide Engineering College
- Nationwide Agricultural College
- Nationwide Polytechnic College
- Antonio de Valdivieso Worldwide College
- Bluefields Indigenous and Caribbean College
- College of the Autonomous Areas of the Nicaraguan Caribbean Coast
4 different universities – confiscated and renamed – will now obtain a part of the cash allotted as properly:
- Ricardo Morales Avilés Nationwide Multi-disciplinary College
- Casimiro Sotelo Montenegro Nationwide College
- Francisco Luis Espinoza Pineda Nationwide College
- Comandante Padre Gaspar García Laviana Nationwide College
Along with these 12 public universities, sure non-public universities “designated by the Presidency by means of the Technical Secretariat for Consideration to Universities” will obtain cash from the 6%, states the reformed legislation.
First printed in Spanish by Confidencial and translated and posted in English by Havana Instances.
