The public university in the scenario of educational policies in Mexico.

Abstract

This study analyzes the perceptions of UAT professors about the current state of public universities in Mexico in the context of public policies for higher education established by the State that guide and control substantive functions, emphasizing the current situation of autonomy from the supervision of the government apparatus. It is a case study with a qualitative approach, interviews were conducted with teachers and the narrative method was used. The findings show that the conception of the public university is related to the historical value and recognition for its contributions to society, the role of the State and universities is to build together educational policies in favor of quality, whose changes cause the actors to give it sense to the events to act in a better way, there is a sense in the policies of regulating substantive functions to expect homogeneous results that do not consider the contexts of the universities, a change in autonomy is how vulnerable universities have become to the decisions of the State and it is believed that dialogue with government authorities to propose political and academic independence is the most effective action to recover autonomy.