As it was conceived, the UNAM is permanently oriented to educate Mexicans in freedom, providing them with the necessary knowledge and bringing them closer to the most varied scientific and humanist conceptions so that they can form a plural, critical and socially conscious thought. , preparing them so that they can go out to look for a better life and to exercise a profession for the benefit of their loved ones and our country.
The deep social inequalities that we suffer have left on the backs of public education, and essentially on the UNAM, as it is the one with the highest student enrollment, the responsibility of accommodating those who otherwise would not have been able to access the classrooms or school. college instruction. In fact, there are so many deficiencies and social asymmetries of those who make up the university community, that more than half of its students, who today number about 367,000 students, have been assigned a food, mobility or, recently, connectivity scholarship.
UNAM, no doubt, is the University of the Nation because it represents the educational, cultural and social project of greatest historical significance, for all its contributions to the development of our country. Its authentically national character has led it to have a presence in all the states and to provide services of the utmost importance for the republic, such as the national seismic, the national library and newspaper library, the astronomical observatory or the tidal network.
Its presence has transcended borders, expanding its authority as a model institution in the international arena, as reflected in all serious and objective rankings, ranking as one of the 100 best universities in the world, and one of the two best in Latin America. , where the three nobel prizes that our country has today have graduated from.
But it is also the people’s university, because it keeps its doors permanently open to the historically underprivileged, discriminated against or forgotten, as well as to those who come from the middle classes and even to the children of politicians, judges and high-ranking businessmen who had the privilege to go through their classrooms.
In its geography it does not matter the color of the skin, the gender identity, the political or religious preferences, the social status or the place of origin. All and all, from their diversity, are equally welcome to their spaces for reflection and knowledge, through supportive, but also democratic conditions, oriented so that each one can develop freely both inside and outside the University.
Anyone who knows the national history knows that the social vocation of UNAM has made it the main institution “of” and “for” the social mobility of Mexico, because regardless of the economic condition of its students, it has contributed to its most modest graduates can become professionals who obtain the essential satisfactions to lead a dignified life and achieve their own happiness.
I have no doubt that the strength of the UNAM is in its condition of open house to all knowledge, all visions, ideologies and ways of thinking, because clinging to a single way of thinking, no matter how conservative or populist it may be, it would affect the universality of knowledge to be disseminated, the ideological plurality and the freedom of each one to choose those that satisfy him most fully. It is an autonomous university, the architect of its own destiny, which has not sought to crouch, but, on the contrary, has shown that the freedom of institutional leadership can and should be exercised with responsibility and high social commitment.
The University, only after the church, constitutes the institution with the greatest vocation of permanence in the history of Humanity. The five centuries of existence of the UNAM confirm that the governments of the right, left, center and populists will come and go, and it will be there, representing the best of our academic tradition, the most representative of our critical conscience, making clear the benefits of academic and thought freedom, within its permanent commitment to the transforming vocation of the social environment of our country.
Reference-www.eleconomista.com.mx