The moment I am writing this column, an interesting day is happening at the Basque University of Summer (UEU) in Pamplona, 49. Within the Summer Courses: From academia to population, from urban to academic. I listened with pleasure to the rapporteurs at the table, but unfortunately, I was unable to go for my work duties. Until I get the minutes or the recording of the act, I would like to make a few thoughts on this fundamental issue.

Academic university is often accused of moving away from popular concerns, from citizens and from the real world in general, and to a large extent it is true. This note is not just made in Euskal Herria. As far as I am aware, much more is being stressed in France than in the great vacuum of the university is that pupils are not sufficiently prepared for the reality of the market, but that they are trained as unemployable workers. Basically, the universities of the world are classified, among other things, according to the employability of the students who have trained them. Therefore, the university has been asked to better respond to the socio-economic needs derived from the capitalist system. But it is not in this line that the EU has guided reflection, as the first function of the university cannot be to set people in a format for a special work world, but to train people who want to learn and sharpen the critical spirit.

Considering, however, that in Iparralde, at least, the universities with scarce resources, seeing that the teaching staff accumulate the courses, the administrative work accumulates, and that they have barely more time for research, I believe that the strong relations between university and people must be accelerated more than anything else: we must join forces to collectively promote germination and intellectual openness in society, as well as wisdom and transmission.

To transfer the ties between the academic world and the people to literature, I would say that the past shows us that true critical interest has begun thanks to strange scholars, such as Francisque-Michel and Vinson. The following are the sites that, before being Euskaldunak or Euskaltzaindia, have been researching and validating the literature. If we look at literary creation, for example the narrative department, we will find that the first authors of stories were sediments of the intellectual society of their time, but that it was very important for them to be in touch with the popular literature in their works. I am thinking here of the architects such as Bizenta Mogel, Zaldubi or Oxobi, who launched the narrative genre in the Basque literature: they succeeded, that is, because they chose the semi-collected semi-public genre, because they had a broad audience, and not only the cultured audience as others (such as Juan Antonio Mogel with Peru Abarth).

Also in other fields of knowledge or creation it can be demonstrated that Basque culture and society have been advanced when the academic world and construction work have been promoting and promoting the other. At a time when public institutions are weakening, I believe that mutual support is more necessary than ever. In Iparralde we have strong cultural associations, before Euskal Kultur Erakundea... and the university, together with research laboratories, tries to promote their knowledge. More cooperation can still be done for the benefit of the citizens and the people.