higher education in venezuela threatened as professors flee nation's academia for better jobs - video projector

CARACAS, Venezuela-Venezuela has lost many of its brightest young professionals
Working in a more stable country, South American countries are now losing their professors.
The university professors in this socialist country, plagued by cash shortages, shortages and inflation, have given up their jobs in droves, and under the widely used black market exchange rate, the salary of $30 per month is negligible, unable or unwilling to survive.
In the past, teachers earned enough to buy a house and a car, and the University sponsored them to study attractive professional development courses abroad.
But in the past decade, the minimum wage for professors has only increased, meaning that the income gap between senior and primary educators has disappeared, and now everyone has a similar meager salary.
According to the teachers union, hundreds of professors have abandoned their positions in recent years and the pace is accelerating.
Of the 700 professors teaching at Caracas's highly respected Central University in Venezuela, more than 4,000 have resigned over the past four years, and some have done better --
Work in other areas of the country, while others are attracted to more attractive academic positions in foreign universities.
The professor warned that outflows would have a multiplier effect as it reduced the quality of teaching and research in institutions where the Venezuelan had studied abroad and returned home to teach.
Now, those who study abroad seldom come back.
52-said: "We will feel the consequences for future generations. year-
Old Biology professor Pedro Rhodes, a researcher at the University of Chicago, is on vacation
Part-time jobs at Central University
He is now considering whether to retire and stay in the United States permanently.
The Ministry of Higher Education did not respond to multiple requests for comment on academic outflows.
Teachers say they cannot live on the meager wages provided by the government, and are tired of official neglect of central universities and other autonomous public universities that used to be treasures of the national education system. The 16-year-
The old socialist revolution initiated by the late President Hugo Chavez has instead highlighted the government's "revolutionary university", which provides free education for thousands of students who might otherwise have skipped school.
At the same time, the institutions of self-government received less attention and the budget was killed.
The government provides funds for self-governing bodies but does not manage them directly.
Self-governing institutions are free like revolutionary universities, but they are also more academically rigorous and selective and are not accessible to anyone but the best students.
Victor Marquez, president of the Association of Professors at Central University, said the government had lowered the professor's wage standards and cut funding, with only 39% of the budget approved this year.
When the government froze wages in 2010, he said, university professors had begun leaving their jobs, leaving the rest of the educators at the mercy of what economists think is the world's highest inflation.
Now, top professors are paid $35 on the black market, less than twice the minimum wage of $18.
On a tree-lined, secluded Central University campus, students complain that the courses they want are not offered and their professors are low in morale.
"The school is going through a bad period and the quality of education will be affected sooner or later," says hasseller igsias, who studies chemical engineering.
Many of the teachers who stayed used part-time jobs to supplement their income.
Hours of work or vacation to work and save money.
Only 10% of professors at the Central University business school work full-time.
The 61-year-old Isabel Carmona walked quickly along the corridor of a bungalow that has been working as a temporary office for business school for a year.
She did it all, from mentoring junior colleagues, to advising graduate students, to seeking donations for video projectors, and finding fans to make up for the lack of air conditioning.
To save money, she has been doing her second job in the office in the morning so she can visit her children living in Florida.
"This school is a school that trains business managers and accountants.
"Time staff," she said.
"I will never say to young people now, 'You should stay here and teach.