The University of Panama strike demonstrated the existence of a problem to the few who need to be shown. After 35 days the strikers went back to work with a less than definitive agreement, but nobody should think that the walkout's end means that all is now well.

Just about everybody knows that this country's universities, despite worthy exceptions, lag way behind what's needed to advance this country's development. They turn out too many people with degrees that deem them qualified to perform certain necessary social functions, which they can't competently do in the working world. Too many students leave the university expecting that graduation is the end of their education and believing that their degrees are lifetime meal tickets, the keys to cushy jobs that require little work and less learning.

The argument over some $700,000 in unpaid salaries, the strike's immediate cause, shows critical weaknesses in university governance and highlights the cynical way in which the Moscoso administration is cheating Panama's entire educational system.

Economy and Finance Minister Norberto Delgado and Comptroller General Alvin Weeden say that the money was paid to the university, but can't show the check. Their fallback claim is that the money for seniority raises was part of the university's appropriation in the 2002 national budget. But of course, the administration's budget for last year wasn't approved by the legislature, so the 2001 budget was extended through 2002, and the 2001 university appropriation DID NOT include funds for contractually obligatory pay raises in 2002.

This, however, should not let Rector Julio Vallarino off the hook. The university administration knew all about the budget shortfall early last year but failed to make the necessary adjustments.

Do we say that the Arnulfista-MOLIRENA national administration is incompetent and dishonest, to the detriment of the University of Panama? We say precisely that.

What's as sad to say, but must be said, is that all of these things are also true of the University of Panama's PRD administration.

The City of Knowledge might have held out the hope for an end run around all of the vaina that's inherent in the University of Panama as we have come to know it. Sadly, the law effectively makes it a University of Panama dependency. Clayton could have become the central campus for many smaller educational institutions, with a world class library and several other common facilities making the whole much greater than the sum of the parts. Instead it's a badly run business, one that prices itself out of the rental market and brands itself as the local center of "The New Economy" without the slightest sense of embarrassment about identifying itself with a slogan that has been discredited for several years now.

The proliferation of private "universities" with grossly inadequate libraries is an even worse symptom of the malaise. All of the new charters that the University of Panama has issued appear to make little sense --- unless there are payoffs about which we haven't been told.

So if we can't rely the Moscoso or Vallarino, can we rely on the legislature to clean up the university mess? We don't think so, and notice that the businesses that so desperately need a better-educated work force haven't jumped on that bandwagon either.

A series of political reforms, including changes in the fields of university governance, educational finance, school accreditation and the City of Knowledge's organization and functions, are obviously needed. A series of cultural reforms, in academic standards, in the relationship between a degree and job qualifications, in the nation's reading habits and more, are every bit as necessary as the political reforms.

The strike is settled, but there is no quick solution to the nation's education problems in sight. The political front looks especially bleak. However, all through society there is a persistent demand for something better. We see many grass roots efforts to address pieces of the problem, from literary nights at private bookstores to student radicals demanding that the University of Panama rid itself of botellas to community groups rewarding academic excellence. At a certain point the people behind these disparate efforts will need to join forces to elevate Panama onto a higher intellectual plane.

Babies don't need fathers, but mothers do. Someone who is taking care of a baby needs to be taken care of.

Amy Heckerling

It feels so good to be one of the few who see The Truth --- a sensation relished by our own native fundamentalists, libertarians, marxists, free-marketers, postmodern leftists, as well as a great many regular Republicans and Democrats, differing only in who they credit with sight and who qualifies as sheep!

David Brin

In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

Martin Luther King, Jr.