The university system in Spain: An analysis of structure

While tradition is the basic factor that keeps the Spanish university system tied to rigid and outmoded academic programs, a second important factor is the vested interest of the senior faculty. University faculty attain their full professorship through an archaic open competition which has endowed the position with high social and political prestige and with the opportunity of earning a high income from consulting outside the university. Within the university the full professor is a government bureaucrat with life-time tenure, and all the lower ranked professors within his field of specialty work for him. With only minor success university students are rebelling against this archaic system in an effort to liberalize and modernize the academic programs. Even the Ministry of Education has avoided a frontal attack against the system. The government is establishing new autonomous universities, with flexible and modern academic programs, and an administration similar to that found in most American universities.