Unah: Cut of L1,441 million impacts academic capacity

The National Autonomous University of Honduras (Unah) faces a budget cut of more than 1,441 million lempiras, which will impact key areas such as student enrollment, hiring personnel and institutional projects.

Odir Fernández, rector of the highest house of studies, reported that the budget initially projected and sent to the Executive power It amounted to 8,600 million lempiras. However, in the last few hours, the Secretary of Finance reported a reduction of 1,441 millions of lempiras.

This adjustment includes 74 million in the line of wages and salaries, which limits the institutional capacity to respond to teaching and administrative needs. As a consequence, the processes of hiring of teachers and administrative staff, and the selection competitions have been suspended.

The cut also includes 900 million lempiras corresponding to the “Mi Bienestar” project, through which thousands of students receive food and vouchers for the purchase of school supplies. With the removal of this budgetthe students They would lose essential support such as food, academic materials and housing, according to university authorities.

Likewise, 441 million allocated to building improvements were reduced. The rector explained that this decrease is related to the exclusion of a loan previously approved with the Development Bank of Latin America (CAF) for 1,169 million lempiras, whose execution for this year contemplated 441 million.

“We are making the adjustments, we have held an emergency meeting with the university authorities and we have identified that at least we are not going to stop transportation and we are going to see where we get the resource from,” he said. Odir Fernandezrector of the Unah.

Fernández warned that, for the next academic period, the university will have a limited capacity, since the reduction forces the restriction of quotas, sections and academic coverage from the second period onwards, which would leave thousands of young people with less opportunities access and educational continuity.

“Next Friday, April 24, we are going to the PHUMA testwhere almost 20,000 students undergo. The projection was to reach 85,000 students, but we are going to decrease in those enrollment processes,” he said. Odir Fernandez.

Despite the financial situation, the rector stressed that the university There are no arrears in the payment of salaries. However, he warned that the outlook for 2026 remains uncertain, because they have not yet received disbursements from the budget corresponding to that year.