Report, online universities and the fool of Minister Zangrillo
What the Minister of Public Administration, Paolo Zangrillo (Forza Italia) did and what does he say about the relationship with online universities
There is a Zangrillo case in the dossier between online universities and public administration.
Even the Rai investigative programme, Report , has focused in the last few hours on the alleged favoritism that the Meloni government is allegedly granting to online universities, on the basis of what has already been said by Start Magazine in recent months, which has been following the matter for some time.
And exactly as reconstructed by Start , Report also ascertained in the program broadcast on 28 April the internal discord within the centre-right which caused quite a bit of tension within Forza Italia last summer.
It is interesting to note that the Minister of Public Administration, Paolo Zangrillo (in the photo, on the right, with Fabio Vaccarono, CEO of the Multiversity group which owns the digital universities Pegaso, Mercatorum and San Raffaele), who promoted online universities to close collaborators of the State for initiatives concerning the training of public employees starting from the Pa 110 and praise initiative, however, continues to not want to assume political responsibility for the act. But let's go in order.
PA 110 cum laude, WHAT BRUNETTA HAD STATED
As mentioned, the object of the dispute is "Pa 110 cum laude", i.e. the program launched on the wave of enthusiasm of the Pnrr and on the need to update the skills of state workers as a result of a memorandum of understanding signed on 7 October 2021 (Draghi government) between the then Minister for Public Administration, Renato Brunetta , and the Minister of University and Research, Maria Cristina Messa , to allow all public employees to benefit from an incentive for access to tertiary education: degree courses, specialization courses and master's degrees.
Brunetta didn't want to listen to reason at the time, excluding the online universities from the collaboration. Moreover, digital universities are burdened by the very unflattering judgments of the National Agency for the Evaluation of the University and Research System (Anvur) which in the latest report underlined that in 2022, while the ratio between students and teachers in traditional universities was 28.5, with a decrease of 1.5 compared to ten years earlier, for online ones was 384.8 students for just one professor.
At the time, Brunetta ignored the documentation sent by the Niccolò Cusano University, owned by the current mayor of Terni, Stefano Bandecchi , who wanted to know how to join the tender just promoted by the government. The digital universities, however, considered the silence of the Forzista discriminatory and appealed to the TAR to be considered.
With the succession of the Draghi and Meloni governments and the consequent change of ministers, another Forzista went to the Department of Public Administration and one of the first acts was to open collaborations between public administration and universities also to telematic ones: he is Paolo Zangrillo whose move, according to the reconstruction of Start , caused quite a few stomach aches not only for Brunetta who had wanted to shut them out, but also for another party colleague who ended up presiding over the Ministry of Universities: Anna Maria Bernini .
WHY DOES ZANGRILLO WELCOME TELEMATIC UNIVERSITIES?
But how does Zangrillo motivate his decision to welcome digital universities, previously excluded? This brings us to last night's Report broadcast. Zangrillo said to his Rai3 colleagues: "There was a ruling that reminded us of the need to consider online universities like the others and not create stepchildren."
And to the journalist who pressed him he replied: "I was careful to respond to an indication that was given to us precisely by a sentence", refusing to define that signature as a political act.
WHAT THE TAR SAID
However, in accepting the appeal, the TAR limited itself to asking the competent ministry to "disclose, through a specific provision, its intention, or otherwise, to implement the protocol". It is difficult to misunderstand the administrative judges, given that the phrase next to intention reports that or not : the text of the TAR in short specifies that the magistrates are not entering into the merits of the decision, limiting themselves to reminding the ministry of its duty to respond, which may be acceptance or rejection.
In short, one of two things: either Zangrillo didn't understand what the judges wrote or he speciously uses that sentence to hide his own political act.
THE SAME EXCUSE USED A YEAR AGO
Furthermore, it is not the first time that Zangrillo calls the TAR into question in order not to admit that the decision to open up to online universities was his. An article from 14 August 2023 in the Domani newspaper explains this: "To motivate this step, the minister claimed – in a letter sent to this newspaper – that he had complied with a ruling from the Lazio Regional Administrative Court. In short, a necessary act."
But the version was denied months ago by Italia Viva senator Silvia Fregolent who told the same newspaper: “As an administrative expert I read the sentence. It condemns the lack of feedback, but does not require us to accept, regardless, the application for admission to the protocol". For this reason, the Renzian parliamentarian concluded, "Zangrillo's is a political decision, legitimate, but not supported by the TAR as he instead vehemently repeats".
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/report-le-universita-telematiche-e-la-figuraccia-del-ministro-zangrillo/ on Tue, 30 Apr 2024 06:00:53 +0000.