I
feel the urgent need to express my anger because, one more time, i
can only feel disbelief at how things are done in my country. I do
not pretend to do an extensive and profound analysis. In reality,
life is much easier and i don't need to do research and write up a
PhD thesis to see and feel with despair that what many Spaniards left
as famous quotes, hold true. In brief, that Spain is a country filled
with indiference towards their people and future. Those who pursue a
creative career, those who pursue research, those with intellectual
curiosity, are doomed to indifference and contempt.Simple reasons,
simple facts, just the experiences of a few years in a short 25 years
life, have been enough to show me this, and have been enough to feel
let down, disappointed. The chance to live, study and work in 4
different countries made me see that yes, Spain is different.
I
only need to take a look at how the universities work. We can start
from a huge and extremely inefficient bureaucracy, which during three
years gave me lots of reasons to commit murder. People who do not
know their job and people who are just not willing to do it. I will
remember with anger the hours spent going from one place to another
trying to find a person who would finally help me rather than sending
me somewhere else. I will not forget the times when it seemed that i
needed an eternity to get a simple document or a signature. As an
example, i will not forget the time i was told i would have to wait
from 3 to 7 days for a document (a simple paper) because i needed a
signature from the head of the Secretariat. It didn't matter the fact
that i kindly asked her to please call that person to come down (it
would take 2 minutes) and sign because i was leaving Spain in two
days and i really needed that document. In Spain things do not work
that way and if you want something to work, you have to shout. So i
did, and i said i needed that document and i was tired of people not
doing their job and that she would have to contact that person
immediately and the person would have to come down and sign. To come
down just takes two minutes, the same as when she comes down to smoke
her cigarettes and have her coffes every now and then. It took her
half an hour to get the document done and it just almost cost me a
heart attack. I will not forget that my friend missed an
extraordinary scholarship that she should have obtained thanks to her
academic records simply because the idiots lost some document and she
was never informed on time. I will never forget the numerous emails I
sent to different academic and administrative departments which were
left without a response. I will never forget the absolute lack of
coordination between different departments regarding all important
matters. A whole bunch of helpless people whose most exasperating
habit is the face of disgust with which they receive you and perform
their job.
You
can imagine my surprise when i saw that another way of doing things
is possible. The shiny smiles i was attended with, the brilliant
professionalism and the amazing efficiency i observed in
Denmark...comparisons are indeed, odious. I will never forget the
first time i went to a desk and i said i needed a document to be
signed and sent to Spain. I asked if they could indicate me where i
should go. She asked me what i wanted and after i explained it She
told me: “No problem, we do it here! Just a sec.” All this with
the biggest possible smile. I was baffled, with my mouth completely
opened just watching how the girl signed the document and sent it by
fax. OK, i thought Denmark must be Perfectland, an extraordinary
exception never to be repeated again. Well, it turned out to be
similar in New Zealand and so far it has also been quite good in
Czech republic. New Zealand was a dream, problem solving at the speed
of light. As an example, i remember i was selected as a proxy in one
of the Electoral Collegues during the regional elections in Spain.
This is mandatory so i went to a desk and asked them to make a letter
stating that I could not attend because i was living in New Zealand.
The letter was done and sent in 5 minutes, no cost, nothing but a big
smile. Another example: when i went back to Spain i had some inquires
and needed some things and I contacted both the supervisor for
exchange students in New Zealand and the one in Spain. The one from
New Zealand answered in a few hours. The one from Spain never. These
are just a few simple examples, easy to grasp for everyone. Please,
to all you Spaniards who read this and have never studied or worked
abroad, can you possibly imagine this? Going to a desk (two at the
most) and get your things done quickly and accompained with a big
smile? I know it is difficult to imagine but believe me, it is
possible.
But
if there is something that really breaks my energy is the education
system and the quality of the lecturers. Let's begin with the
lectures and this is possibly the hardest part to write for me since
i also had the chance to meet a few fantastic lectures whom i will
keep in my heart for the rest of my life. What in the hell is wrong
with the lecturers in Spain? They look just like another bunch of
office holders, unmotivated and without any passion for teaching.
Countless are the number of lecturers I met whose teaching agenda
resembles the one that was given in the prehistory. This is
particularly striking in a degree like biology where you have to be
constantly updating your knowledge and agenda, otherwise you get out
of phase extremely quickly since the amount of data and knowledge
broadens by the minute. This also means, many of the things that were
believed to be correct a few years ago dont hold true anymore. It is
extremely frustrating to find a lecturer at university who is
teaching you something you know it is incorrect! When i went to
university for the first time i was full of expectations, excited
thinking of the incredible world of ideas, discovery, innovation,
passion...and i found unbearable lectures, unable to accept a
different opinion, unwilling to change their ideas or have any type
of debate. Lecturers who would come to give a 50 minutes lecture that
would consist of reciting notes. Boring lecturers whose goal seems to
discourage their students. I will not forget our lecturer in the
microbiology course. She would come day after day to class, to spend
50 minutes reading notes which had probably been prepared 15 years
before or more. In the exam, she made thousands of corrections which
were actually wrong! You can imagine the frustration of finding out
that our grades are lower because this woman who is supposed to be
teaching us is wrong. I didnt want to leave it like that and talked
to a fantastic lecturer (one of the very few) and said that i wanted
to go for an external correction. Her response? “You are correct
but do not do it. They will all be on the side of your lecturer, it
always happens and then she will have the right to recorrect your
exam, and she will bring the grade further down, believe me”. I was
shocked. Conclusion, i missed what would be translated as the
excellence grant, which is very pursued scholarship, just for a few
decimals, those that i missed thanks to a lecturer whose only goal
seems to be to destroy the hopes and motivations of her students.
But
what can you expect from lecturers who have spent all their lifes in
the same university and have hardly (if any at all) had any
professional career other than teaching? They have always occupied
the same position, without any “fresh air”, they have never been
abroad and never known anything other than their very limited little
world of teaching. All the professorate receives money to do
research, yet only 40% percent of the professors does any research at
all. The research career of this 40% is often, very poor. Those who
do research usually do it in the same place where they studied and
then started to work, again having a “world” extremely narrow. I
believe this is due in part to the very little prestige being a
lecturer has in Spain, specially in something like biology, which is
still considered to be, among people in their 40's or older, like
being an outcast. This leads to having mediocre unmotivated teachers.
Besides, the stiffness and slowness of allocating resources (which by
the way are very limited) by our universities is incredible and the
flexibility for our lecturers to move around through unviersities an
absolute joke. What is a lecturer, who has never seen anything other
than its desk, and who has never published a paper or done any
research going to teach me? Once again, another world is possible.
Those
lecturers in Denmark or New Zealand who would sit down to discuss a
paper published by the same lecturer itself! A lecturer who would
show us critical thinking and research-oriented approaches; who would
discuss thousands of papers and the problems encounter, who would
discuss troubleshooting and ask for our ideas and comment. Do you
understand this, what do you think the problem here is, how would you
solve it, what might be the reason for this result, what would you
look for next? Hours and hours of discussions, seminars, slides,
powerpoints...lectures and practical work where the professor is
actually constantly asking you and encouraging you to not only ask
but question things. But of course, these lecturers and professor
are, first of all, researchers, with a whole career on their backs.
They have a professional life on their field an because of that, they
are suitable for teaching. Comparisons are, once more, odious.
All
this is connected with our educational system, where everything is
mostly lectures. That is once more, 50 minutes of boring lecturers
reciting their notes and us copying them. Thousands and thousands of
notes to be memorized. You see? It really looks like they are
preparing us for some office positions! Then you go to another
country to continue study like it is my case and i find that yeah, i
probably have more knowledge than most of the people there, but i am
missing something important. Students in Spain are in general
unmotivated and they dont even really know why they are at
university. They dont really enjoy, they dont take a lecture as
something magical where you go to learn, to get fascinated, to train
how to think. Not at all, there is only stress thinking of the final
exam for which you need to put 100 pages of endless notes in your
brain, those which you will forget two days after all exams are
finished, when you get completely wasted to celebrate the end of the
exam period. This knowledge makes no sense at all anymore. Of course
you need to have some basic knowledge, but it is the hands-on work
which provides you the experience and the capacity to create, to
critically think, to innovate, to broaden your perspective and to
solve problems. Of all what i learned at university, i seriously
doubt i remember 5% of it, but in two years in the lab i have learnt
1000 times more than during my 5 years of uni. But i said that thesse
endless notes do not make sense any more and it is pretty obvious it
is like this. We have acces to internet, to thousands of data bases,
electronic journals, webinars!! It made sense 50 years before, when
getting access to some information was a real pain in the neck, but
now? In 15 minutes i can find thousands of papers for a certain
topic, lots of electronic books and discussion forums etc. I can
contact experts in the matter and wait for their reply...i dont need
those thousands of notes in my brain i need to think! I need to
imagine, i need to ask, i need to find out, i need to wonder. This is
something not understood in Spain, and this is because the
administrative stuff, the lecturers and the politicians of my country
have no professional life out of their office desk, have never
created anything, do not have a view of the external world, there is
no “fresh air flowing through the doors”. In three years and a
half at the university in Spain i didnt have to write a single
assignment which would resemble a scientific journal. We were never
taught that. How to write a paper, how to make a good seminar, how to
give a lecture, how to write a review. When i flick through the
assignments i made in Spain and look at my high grades...i dont know
if to cry or to laugh cause all our assignments resembled those from
school. Not a single assignment that would look like a scientific
journal in three and a half years and, as an example, i wrote more
than 5 in a year in New Zealand.
Practical
focus. Dialogues, discussions, field work...that is what other
serious countries focus on. We focus on memorizing and when the
practical work comes, we dont even have workbooks for all the
students. Overcrowded universities, flooded with unmotivated students
missing resources. Our universities are, what a brilliant lecturer
described once, as cofee for everyone. There are way too many people
and the problem is that there are almost no ways to discriminate
between those students who are worth something and those who are not.
An astonishing 30% of university students abandon university within
the first two years! The average time at university is two more years
than the expected! And this happens because the basic education in
Spain is also failing, filled also with unmotivated teachers incapable of transmiting passion and love for what they teach to
their students. An education where students hardly have to fullfill
any requirements, where students begin too early at university (i
started when i was 17) before they can make up their mind and an
education where students get completely disappointed once they make
it to uni. In Spain, everyone has to study, and you find students who
do not care at all and therefore go throughout the whole degree
without asking a single question to their lecturers. How in the hell
is it possible that most of the students i met at university were
uncapable of writing a text without making grammar mistakes! Even
now, when i read things from friends, i get shocked, with some
grammar mistakes that should be punished with prison (do not take
this literally). Universities filled with students who do not know
how to write, who do not have any ambitions and who do not really see
anything precious and beautiful in being at uni. Where is that field
of excellency that was supposed to be the uni? How can you motivate
your students, how can you really get the best out of them, how can
you get close to your student, discuss, get to know it, when you have
100 people in class? In Denmark i had group discussions of 10-20
people and in New Zealand too. What a marvelous thing.
Apparently,
our minister of education believes that this might be solved, at
least in part, by increasing the university fees and cutting money
expenditure on research and education. What a brilliant fellow. He
even says that in Spain there is the attitude of “everything for
free” and things cannot continue this way. Do you want to know, my
dear minister, what free means? In Denmark, you do not pay anything
for your degree, either for a bachellor or for a masters. Even if you
are a foreign student, you pay nothing. Every single Danish student
receives enough money a month during 5 years to manage to leave on
that, out of their parents home. That is, you have students focusing
on their studies while learning how to get by out of their parents
home (many times in other cities), establishing strong conections
with other fellow students and flatmates. This brings the point that
students in other countries are much more mature than in Spain since
they already live by themselves and have a broader mind than a
Spanish student who still lives with its family. In Denmark, they
even find funny that 22 year old students still live with their
parents. Sweden is very similar, another beautiful example on its
own. University education is also usually free of charge in Germany
and it is free also in Czech Republic (although that might change
soon). I could continue with examples and countries but the idea is
clear. These countries invest much more in their students and
education, they seem to be floating on what you, my dear minister,
consider the attitude of “everything for free” yet the research
is more and better and the student failure is much lower. It seems
that not all is about money but i would say more about mentality and
the system...but of course you dont want to change that, since you
have the same failed mentality.
Actually
yes, you want to change things, and indeed this is another
characteristic of our beautiful country. The two major political
parties which alternate in power have found very funny to be
constantly modifying the educational system. Small patches for
enormous wholes, patches which only damage more since without a
program with continuity we will get nowhere. A wonderful example was
all this Bologna plan, never properly explained and an absolute
disaster. Lecturers arguing to keep their lectures and positions,
defending its share of power (deplorable). They said that it was to
adapt to education in Europe. What the hell? Biology is now a 4 years
degree when the bachelor in most countries is 3. There are not true
masters and this is just an excuse to pay thousands of euros (the
price is rising like foam when serving a beer) for a ridiculous
“masters” which lasts 1 year, a year and a half at the most in
which there is almost no practical work (6 months at the most), there
is no real masters thesis to be writen up and there is no real
continuity afterwards. My friends, university mates, who did the 5
years degree called licenciatura like me, had to do a master because
surprise surprise, although they were still part of the old plan they
were not allowed to go to PhD straight away anymore, they had to do a
masters, they had to pay thousands of euros for something which
hardly taught them anything, left them profoundly diappointed, only
delayed their PhD and ruined their pockets. In other serious
countries, you have a serious bachelor at the end of which you have
to write up your first thesis. Afterwards you go into the 2 years
master program. In the case of Denmark or New Zealand, for instance,
the last year of the masters is only in the lab. You find a
supervisor who has a place (there is place for everyone since all
professors pretty much do some research) and you work on their topics
for that year. That is real research and so in the end, you might
even publish a paper if you are lucky. Students can start before of
course, in their bachelor or in the first year of master if they have
the courage and the excitement to look for the place. In Czech
Republic i work at the Academy of Sciences, a public institution but
it is not a University. It is full of students, from the bachellor to
the PhD doing their research there. You can contact a researcher, say
you want to do the research there for your thesis and if you look
interested enough, you get a position. Even the bachelor students get
some money for their work (learning process) there. Can you Spaniards
believe this? Can you really believe that in your second year of
university you would have a place doing research together with people
with a whole research career on their back and getting some money a
month for it? In Spain yes, there is a place for a few students who
get in contact with some department and have the luck to find a
lecturer who is also doing interesting research and has a place and
resources for you. These are very limited places and of course you
get no money at all for it. In other countries, available to almost
everyone. But of course it is difficult to do this when there are
almost no resources and the university is filled with unmotivated
people and overcrowded, offering coffe for everyone while rejecting
research. The whole Bologna plan was intended for small groups to
have discussions, tutorials etc. How in the hell can you do this with
1,4 million university students? When most of the universities are
completely bankrupt and have no resources to implement the new
guidelines? An absolute joke. In Spain most of the students finish
uni without having worked in a lab so in conclusion, no lab, no
thesis, no final state exams...nothing.
Documents
obtained free of charge, labs available to everyone, getting even
paid for your work, all this happens in other serious countries...our
beloved minister says that we are used to having everything for free
but we pay for everything in this freaking country. Every single
document you need to apply for, a scholarship or for any other
reason, you pay a serious amount of money and besides you have to
wait sometimes days, weeks, months or even years (i will get back to
this). This is another fantastic thing, the scholarship. Spain
actually does have quite a few scholarships but many times the method
to select is quite wrong and not always people who deserve those
scholarships actually get them. They are too grade-oriented and it
really overlooks many important things like technical aspects of that
person, creativity, independence, maturity, motivation, cultural
development, future projects...During my studies i didnt find a
single person with better grades than me yet i found many people who
were definitely better than me and who i know will have a much more
prosperous future from a scientifically profesionally oriented
perspective. Simply because they are good, they think well and
because of their ambition, interests and passion.
Just
a few things that make up the whole thing sad and ridiculous. I think
of all my uni mates and in general i feel sad. There are two main
programs by which doctoral training is funded. These programs are
called FPI and FPU. The call for FPI was in February last year and
the provisional list with the accepted candidates was in July and
should have been aproved at the beginning of August. They came out in
December, simply because they didnt want to authorize the
expenditure. To begin their PhD, the students had to enroll in
September. But without the approved list, they did not have access to
tuition. Imagine those who pursue a masters which cost thousands of
euros. Imagine those who pursue PhDs, they are already 24 or older
and get no money at all. Besides, the "FPI" also grants aid
for material to research groups where the students are to join. That
means most people have begun to work without getting paid or having
insurance. Others simply cannot afford it so they have not begun.
More
of the same with the “FPU”, whose call was in May but in november
we found out that many places where removed and that funding was
reduced in 50% for stays abroad. Imagine the shock of those who were
already abroad and found out they were not going to get any money, or
those who had been arranging the stay witht the foreign institution
and finally had to communicate they cannot go. Most of the friends
from uni who still are in Spain have been working for free for
months, or many months waiting without getting compromised with
anything else. Doing a PhD in science absorbes most of your time
however i have friends who have to be serving drinks in pubs to be
able to afford their PhD since they are getting nothing. Most of my
friends who are between 24 and 28 years old are still living with
their parents and have no income. Many of my friends have run away
and left Spain and they are studying abroad. They send me messages
telling me all the offers or opportunities they have to continue a
career there. Of all my close friends, i can only think of one who is
completely independent now and does not need support from a
scholarship or parents and of course, he lives abroad, just like me.
This is way worse than what i ever had to go through but i know the
feeling of being without money and feeling abandoned by your
institution. When i was on eramus i started in August 2010. I didnt
see a single coin of the scholarship until the end of february 2011,
6 months!! When i went to New Zealand, it also took 6 months until i
saw any money. When i told this to students from other countries,
they were all shocked. They all got their money before going or
immediately after arriving. What the hell is going on in Spain?
These
are things that keep floating in my mind. A desolate landscape that
fills me with sadness and anger. This whole thing came back to me
yesterday evening, for a very simple and stupid happening which just
reminded me everything. When i applied for the PhD position in Czech
Republic, they asked for my title. I said well i am sorry but i
havent got it yet. Yes, i applied for my title in july 2011 and i
dont have it with me yet. They didnt believe me and it really took me
time to convince them. Only when i showed them a document stating
that i applied for it, signed by the University president, they
accepted it, still incredulous at what was going on. In Czech
Republic, like in any serious country, you get your title
immediately, because you deserve to have it immediately, especially
considering how important it is when it comes to applying for jobs
and positions. In Czech Republic, like in any serious country, the
tittle is for free. In Spain, your title, which you have gained
thanks to the effort through years, costs 150 euros. A title that
costs 150 euros and which i have not seen after a year and 7 months!
But the most funny thing comes now. I received yesterday a letter
stating that i had obtained what would be translated as exceptional
degree award, which is obtained when you have the best grades of your
promotion. I receive this a year and 8 months after i finish and you
know what you get out of it? You are exempt from paying the fees for
your title BUT only if you show this notification before applying for
the title! I applied for this tittle more than a year and a half ago
you idiots! At this stage i just burst laughing. Spain is different.
In Czech Republic, students with As and Bs in their record
automatically get some money a year, without the need to apply for it
and if you finish the degree with the equivalent to what i got, which
is “summa cum laude” they get much more money and a lot of
recognition. I dont care about the money although of course it would
be nice to receive some, but i care about that recognition, that
acknowledgement. In Spain all scholarships, everything seems to be
money oriented but people forget about you. There is no
acknowledgement of your effort and your achievements, no motivation,
no encouragement. There is nothing but in this case, a letter
arriving to my parents home, a year and 8 months later. Many
excellent students are never addressed, never wanted, never
acknowledged, indifference is the response and so they just leave.
Where i work here in Czech Republic i receive lots of emails in the
areal mail offering PhD and postdoc positions. If you go to the
website of the Faculty of Biology from Universidad Complutense de
Madrid there is a bulleting board for job offers. I have been
checking that every now and then, mostly as a curiosity, always
expecting to find something. Do you know how many times i found, not
many, simply a single job offer? Never.
Thinking
of all this, does anybody wonder why Spain does not have a single
university among the 200 best ones in most of the world lists? United
Kingdom, Switzerland, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, France, Belgium,
Finland, Denmark, Ireland, Norway always find representatives in
these lists. But then again, how are we to get this without any
continuity in our educational program and a complete revolution in
our concept of the importance of education, how to teach students and
the value they have for our future? But our beloved minister
believes, we are used to having everything for free and his approach
is to cut, cut and cut. The science secretary Carmen Varela already
said it, there are too many researchers in Spain (i wonder where) and
they have to focus on quality. For sure, they are on the way to get
that...
In
Spain is taking place now what is called brain drain. Our beloved
minister says to that: “...many of those, once they acquire some
experience abroad, come back, and this is a very enriching experience
for our country, and highly valued by our companies”. I would lie
if i said i left Spain because of the lack of opportunities. I never
tried. If i live abroad is because i love it, i love living in a
foreign country and experience it every day. However, believe me when
i tell you, Mr. Jose ignacio Wert, beloved minister of education,
that if i had left because of the lack of opportunities, after what i
have seen, i would never go back to Spain. And believe me, beloved
minister, when i tell you, that many of those who left in search of
opportunities, will never go back to Spain. I tell you this because,
unlike you, i live abroad, and i know what i am talking about.
Our beloved minister of education, Mr. Jose Ignacio Wert. Photo obtained from nesiakrenaia-elenafuentescara.blogspot.com