The Government of Spain from its Ministry of Universities plans new changes within the available training offer. One of these modifications directly affects the 3-year university degrees, which will disappear definitively as a limit in the year 2023.
In this way, the different university campuses have a margin of two years to adapt all these degrees to a plan four-year college.According to the latest information, the approval of these measures is immediate.
Organic Law of the University System
The measures come to substantially modify the modifications made during the Government of Mariano Rajoy by Minister Ignacio Wert known as3+2, Bologna Plan.This change was harshly criticized by both the rectors’ sector and the students’ sector, since this formula implied the obligation to carry out some type of subsequent official training, master’s or postgraduate, which would increase both the price of the title and the time to finish
However, there is an exception to the future rule coming from the European supercampuses. In these educational centers they can maintain the 3 years of degree since they allow them to study the university branches in several countries.
During the Council of Ministers last August, the Council of Ministers presented the Draft Organic Law of the University System, LOSU,which will replace the Organic Law of Universities of 2001, LOU. One of the most important points of the agreement, signed in 2019, is the creation of regulations that manage to modernize the university system.
Manuel Castells, Minister of Universities, has spent months discussing the reform project both with parliamentary groups and with the university community, so as to obtain the maximum possible unanimity regarding future measures. The law has several key points for its implementation, all around governance and university structure; financing; teaching and research; students, and teaching and research staff.
However, from the groups of students, unions and rectorsThey speak of an ambiguous text that supposes a serious delay in certain aspects: «It deals extensively with defining a new model of government of the presidential and managerial public university around the figure of the rector, to the detriment of democratic participation and of the transparency of the organs of government and representation”, has transmitted the Federation of Education of Workers’ Commissions, CCOO.
24 degrees affected
As a general rule, the degrees corresponding to 3-year degrees in the Spanish territory are usually focused on new technologies and digital design, most of them being university-specific degrees.
These degrees have 3 years and 180 credits, so with the new reform se expands the number of credits to 240 and four years.On the other hand, the royal decree would maintain the 3 stages of the educational structure: degree, master and doctorate.
Two 3-year degrees are available in Madrid: Global Studies and Digital Arts, both from the Camilo Jose Cela University.At the University of Lleida there are degrees in Digital Design and Creative Technologies and Computer and Digital Interaction Techniques; while at the Open University of Catalonia, UOC, we find the degree in Digital Design and Creation. At the Rovira i Virgili University,URV, will have to modify the degrees of Food Bioprocesses and the Development of Web and Mobile Applications and in the Polytechnic of Catalonia the one of Design, Animation and Digital Art.
On the other hand, the Ramon Llull University has degrees such as Digital Arts, Digital Business Design and Innovation, Software Application Techniques or Digital Interaction and Computer Techniques. The University of Barcelona, UB, also has 3-year degrees such as Cinematography, Artistic Creation for Video Games and Applied Games, Music and Sound Production and Private Investigation.
The last faculty that will have to modify its program is the Autonomous University of Barcelona,UAB, which has a catalog with several titles of 180 credits, such as Management of Smart and Sustainable Cities. At Pompeu Fabra they will also have to expand their degrees in Bioinformatics and Global Studies.
