On 10 February, a new plenary session of the Municipal Universities Advisory Council was held, at which the CAMU 2022 Reports were presented, drawn up by its three working groups: group A – Infrastructures and Facilities; group B – Education, Research and Employment; and group C – Social Transformation.
Through ten working sessions between June and December 2022, the groups have worked on the thematic areas Open Campuses (Group A), Employability and connection with the economic world (Group B), and Equity in access to university (Group C). Before starting this cycle of sessions, the composition of the groups was reviewed in May in order to align as closely as possible the area of experience of the participants and the thematic area of each group, given that in previous cycles different areas had been developed.
Group A – Infrastructure and Equipment
In the 2022 Reports, working group A offers, as a guide, a compilation of the key factors in the process of reforming an urban campus, including cooperation between the different actors in the territory, leadership of the administration, citizen participation, and management and adaptation to change. Together with the key factors, the opinion analyses the main strategic lines to be taken into account in improving urban integration and bringing university campuses closer to citizens, including various proposals for action. This compilation and analysis is based on the recent experience of the Diagonal South Campus Master Plan, promoted by the Les Corts District Management in close collaboration with the UB and the UPC, which have been actively involved in drawing up the opinion.
Group B – Education, Research and Employment
As for working group B, the report analyses employability and the connection with the economic world from three angles: student employability and the relationship between training and labour market needs; training and career counselling during the university stage and university training for professionals; and initiatives inside and outside the university in relation to entrepreneurship. On all these points, the opinion offers a wide-ranging compilation of the agents involved and existing good practices, as well as a series of proposals for action to improve coordination between the economic world and the academic and research world, the introduction of new training models that facilitate bridges between the professional and training worlds and vice versa, and the encouragement of entrepreneurship in the university community. The participation in the working group of both the universities and the main agents of the Catalan economic and productive sector has been key to the scope and specification of the proposals.
Group C – Social Transformation
Finally, working group C addresses in its opinion equity in access to university, echoing the problem identified in the Prometeus programme, in which a growing number of young people have been left out of university in recent years due to ‘increased cut-off marks. Firstly, the group carried out a diagnosis of the problem in the city as a whole, in quantitative and qualitative terms, using data from the Barcelona Education Consortium, among other sources.
Based on this diagnosis, and given the extent of the problem, the report proposes a reservation of university places for young people with NESE B (Specific Educational Support Needs linked to the socio-economic situation). In the development of the proposal, an analysis is made of the background to place reservations in higher education as well as in compulsory and post-compulsory secondary education. The proposal includes a quantitative approximation of the necessary reservation of places and of the system of detection and accreditation of NESE B, as well as the possible requirements for accessing the reservation, and a series of other factors to be taken into account in a measure such as this, including territorial scope or the convenience of a complementary task of accompaniment. The active collaboration of the General Secretariat of the Inter-University Council of Catalonia (CIC), the Secretariat of the Barcelona Municipal Education Council (CEMB) and the Directorate of Post-compulsory and Special Regime Education of the Barcelona Education Consortium (CEB) has been fundamental in drawing up the opinion and consolidating the proposal.
Five years of trajectory
Together with those of 2018 and 2020, the 2022 Opinions are the third since CAMU was set up on 25 July 2017. During these five years of intense work, the groups have developed a diagnosis and proposals for improvement in almost all the thematic areas entrusted to them, which raises the need to review in the near future the orientation of the groups and, where appropriate, new axes or areas for each one.
Barcelona Science and Universities and the CAMU Secretariat are grateful for the participation of all the people who have taken part in the groups and, especially, for the committed and constant work of Isabel Ferrer (UB) and Immaculada Vilardell (UAB), who have coordinated groups A and B respectively, as well as Gemma Xarles (UOC) in the leadership of the proposal of group C. In the coming months, the CAMU Opinions 2022 will be made available to the university community and the general public through the Barcelona Science and Universities portal.
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