This is the common objective, shared by the principal of the UV, Mª Vicenta Mestre, and the students’ representative, who met today by videoconference to discuss the current situation in the context of the alert state and the mobility restrictions.
On Wednesday 1 April, the principal of the Universitat de València, Mª Vicenta Mestre, met the UV students representatives in the Governing Council (Jaume Gavilà, Quim Morera y Berta Serra, from the BEA, and Marcos Durá and Manuel González de Saó) and the General Coordinator of the Student Council Branch (AGE), Andrés Fernández.
The Delegate of the Principal for Students, Mercedes Elizalde, and the vice-principals for Studies, Isabel Vázquez, and for Employment and Training Services, Adela Valero, as well as the principal for Teaching Staff, Ernest Cano, also took part in the meeting.
All share the objective of not losing the academic year and working not to leave anybody behind in this context.
Thus, the principal of the Universitat, Mavi Mestre, has reaffirmed the institution's position to maintain the academic calendar. The forecasts for the evolution of the maintenance of the measures taken by the Spanish government to fight against COVID-19 suppose that the university teaching will finish in a "distance" mode.
The suppression of procedures of cancellation of enrolment because of non-payment is among the flexibility measures adopted.
This decision is part of the flexibility measures, since the regulations oblige the Universitat de València to issue the receipts of the last amount of enrolment in instalments, as other public organisms and the Spanish Tax Agency itself are doing
However, the commitment of the Universitat de València is that, when claiming non-payment of bills, when students justify adverse family situations, payment will be deferred.
Furthermore, they are currently working in the management of scholarships granted by the Valencian Government and, in the next weeks, the Universitat de València will call its own aid programme, which will contemplate the supervened causes, with the objective of avoiding anyone to be excluded from the Universitat because of economic reasons.
As agreed with the representation of students and informed last week to centre managers and deans of Faculties and School directors, a management instruction in this regard was issued this morning to the centres of the Universitat de València.
The principal of the Universitat de València, Mavi Mestre has also informed that will ask the Ministry of Universities to open a call of aids for access to the Internet connections for students who may experience the problems of the digital gap, in the line of the call announced by the Ministry of Education and Professional Training.
In response to questions of the students’ representatives, the principal has informed that, 52% of 1,390 students in mobility programmes addressed by the Office of the Vice-Principal for Internationalisation and Cooperation have answered informing their location. 41% of them decided to stay in their destinations. The Universitat de València is working together with the Ministries of Universities and Foreign Affairs on making possible the return to València of the 35 people who expressed their willingness to come back and found troubles on it.
Non-attendance teaching has been the subject of conversation, and the vice-principal for Studies and Language Policy has informed that they have been working on a survey what will be launched within the next few days in order to know the students' opinion and make an preliminary assessment of non-attendance teaching carried out these weeks.
Videoconferences of the principal with members of her team and the students’ representatives will continue. Already at the beginning of March there were face-to-face meetings for special monitoring the measures to be adopted within the framework of the expansion of the coronavirus COVID-19, which will be telematic now, in compliance with the mobility restrictions established in the declaration of alert state.
