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According to the report of the CRUCH advisory commission in this area, the 61% of the Council's universities has created Gender Equity units or directorates and the 72% has developed protocols against gender violence.
The executive vice president, rector Aldo Valle, highlighted the progress made by the institutions, but warned that “we must overcome the biases of sexist education that we have installed in institutional relations; it is also about what is done in research, in teaching, and in the curricula ”.
With the conviction that it is necessary to continue making progress in reducing gender inequalities in its institutions, the Council of Rectors of Chilean Universities (CRUCH) held its regular session No. 603, held at the Extension Center of the University of Talca.
At the meeting, the rectors reviewed the report of the Gender Equality Commission, created after the feminist mobilizations of 2018. This group - chaired by Antonia Santos, director of Gender Equity and Diversity of the U. Arturo Prat and made up of academics and university campus directives - evaluated the progress in the application of equality policies in the CRUCH institutions.
The Executive Vice President of the Council of Rectors, Aldo Valle, highlighted the work carried out by the universities in this area. “The existence of gender units in the houses of studies and that there are institutional policies has meant changes in the institutions. This guarantees and creates a different base, which will allow to accelerate other changes that are related to overcoming gender gaps that exist at the level of academics and managerial cadres ”, he assured.
President Valle argued that these transformations must be accompanied by deeper cultural changes. “We must overcome the sexist education biases that we have installed in institutional relations; it is also about what is done in research, in teaching, and in curricula. There is a greater task that now has this other condition: that there are institutional places from where gender policies are promoted, follow-ups are carried out and that is why we are doing this evaluation today ”.
The CRUCH authority also stated that "it is obvious that the social movement has had a very favorable impact, because it has encouraged communities internally, so that there are higher levels of participation and institutional responses from the universities."
Main conclusions
The commission's report was presented to the rectors by Antonia Santos, together with Javiera Arce, executive secretary of the Unit for Equality and Diversity of the University of Valparaíso, and Lorena Castro, director of Gender of the University of Talca.
The main conclusions indicate that during the last year, the 39% of the CRUCH universities have made diagnoses on gender inequalities; while the 28% is in the process of making them, the 11% is in the design stage and the 22% has not yet begun this task.
Meanwhile, the institutions' 61% has created gender equality units or directorates and the 72% has developed protocols against gender violence. Of these, a 70% carries out dissemination activities for these instruments. In the field of participation, in the 47% of the houses of studies the female presence in decision-making has grown; while 58% of the activities on non-sexist education developed within the universities have been directed at the three levels (students, academics and civil servants). In addition, on the 50% of the schools, it has information and statistical data disaggregated by sex.
Free work table
In another area, the rector Valle said that the Executive was asked to authorize the universities to use funds from the Solidarity Credit to compensate for the lower income they will receive due to the loss of gratuity suffered by students who exceed the formal duration of their careers.
The executive vice president of CRUCH reiterated the call for a working group to be set up between the ministries of Education and Finance and the higher education institutions assigned to free, "so that we can find the most convenient solutions, in the face of emergencies and priorities that the government has; but also by attending to the needs of the students and their families, who, due to a defective design of the law, are exposed to reproduce this indebtedness of their future ”.
National Awards Jury
Likewise, the Council defined its representatives in the juries that will decide the 2019 National Awards. The rectors Rafael Correa (U. de O'Higgins) for Exact Sciences were elected; Jaime Espinosa (Metropolitan University of Education Sciences) and Diego Durán (Catholic University of Maule), in Education Sciences; María Teresa Marshall (U. de Aysén) in Humanities and Social Sciences; Óscar Galindo (U. Austral de Chile) in Journalism; Aliro Bórquez (U. Católica de Temuco) in Performing and Audiovisual Arts; and Álvaro Rojas (U. de Talca) in Plastic Arts.
The rector of the University of Chile, Ennio Vivaldi, will also participate in all the evaluation commissions, in accordance with the provisions of Law No. 19,169, which regulates the delivery of these awards.
