Oposición: f. ||4. Procedimiento selectivo consistente en una serie de ejercicios en los que los aspirantes a un puesto de trabajo muestran su respectiva competencia, juzgada por un tribunal.
(Free translation: Selection procedure consisting on a several exercices in which those who apply for a job [try to] show their respective competence, judged by a tribunal.)
Nota bene (1): The applicants are called opositores, and not oponentes.
Nota bene (2): In Spain (at least), the name oposición is used only for jobs in the public sector, that is, paid by the government (central, regional or local). Permanent government jobs can only be gotten by winning one.
Nota bene (3): When the job is an academic job in a State University (most universities belong to the State), the tribunal has 5 members, 2 of them belonging to that University and 3 of them to other Universities. For a research job in the C.S.I.C. (``Council of Scientific Research'' the equivalent of the French C.R.N.S.), some the 5 members of the tribunal belong to the C.S.I.C. and some to State Universities. Members of the C.S.I.C. are not eligible for tribunals in State Universities...
All the exercices are open to the public to watch.
This is a bloody and cruel ritual often used to publicly justify or confirm a decision already taken by somebody. At least, let's stop being hypocritical and say aloud who's the chosen guy and don't let the others suffer and be prey of unjustified expectations and hope.
This absurd procedure should be suppressed right away and each department or research institute should freely and autonomously choose whom to hire. This way, there would be no need to play dirty tricks on unwanted opositores who may think themselves worthy of the job just because they wrote more or better papers. Let us make the announcement where nobody can see it and let us set the deadline so nobody can apply in time.
I just hope nobody else applies for my position(). If they do, I will have to show them that I have done much more teaching while they were losing their time with stupid postdocs writing research papers... (Alternatively: I deserve this position because I have been suffering, waiting for it for so long, always here, while they were enjoying life with well-paid postdoc positions in foreign countries...
() Heard by the author to at least three different people. Regrettably, nobody else showed up in those ``oposiciones''.The salary of the winner will be coming from taxpayers' pockets for a long period of time (25 years, on average).
On average, 25 generations of students will be taught by the chosen one.
Nobody will be held responsible and nobody will be made to pay for it if the choice was wrong and the scientific output is not good, research grants applications are rejected, and the teaching level is not improved or maintained.
Recommendation letters directly sent to the tribunal (a common practice) are illegal. Any merits of applicant must be publicly exhibited in the first exercice, and only those merits can be taken into account. The people have a right to know why the winner deserves to receive his money each month for 25 years...
Interestigly enough, some things seem to be changing, even if only in the most extreme cases, as you can check here
First law: people (in particular, members of tribunals) make unconciously their decisions with their guts and search for a rational justification afterwards. In particular, the actual performances of opositores in a oposición will be only used to confirm the pre-judices of the tribunal members.
Second law: when people (in particular, members of tribunals) judge other people, they apply those criteria that would be most favorable to them and ignore those most disfavourable to them. In particular, any merit exhibited by opositores in an oposición that cannot be shared by the tribunal members (as is too often the case with publications, citations etc.) will be utterly ignored.
Hoy nos preocupamos de la autonomía universitaria. Está bien, mas si cada profesor no mejora su aptitud técnica y su disciplina mental; si los centros docentes carecen del heroísmo necesario para resistir las opresoras garras del caciquismo y favoritismo extra e intrauniversitario; si cada maestro considera a sus hijos intelectuales como insuperables arquetipos del talento y de la idoneidad, la flamante autonomía rendirá, poco más o menos, los mismos frutos que el régimen actual. ?De qué serviría emancipar a los profesores de la tutela del estado si éstos no tratan de emanciparse antes de sí mismos, es decir, de sobreponerse a sus miserias éticas y culturales? El problema central de nuestra universidad no es la independencia, sino la transformación radical y definitiva de la aptitud y del ideario de la comunidad docente. Y hay pocos hombres capaces de ser cirujanos de sí mismos. El bisturí salvador debe de ser manejado por otros. (1923)
Porque, lo hemos proclamado mil veces y lo repetiremos otras mil, España no saldrá de su abatimiento mental mientras no reemplace las viejas cabezas de sus profesores (Universidades, Institutos, Escuelas Especiales), orientadas hacia el pasado, por otras nuevas, orientadas hacia el porvenir. No reside, pues, el daño en los que aprenden, ni en el Estado que, en la medida de los posible, sufraga los gastos, sino en los que enseñan. De unos salen los otros. Ideal del discípulo será siempre parecerse a su maestro. ?Cómo superarse si no halla cerca de sí otro término más alto de comparación? Y pues es fuerza romper la cadena de hierro de nuestro atraso, rómpase por el anillo docente, único sobre el cual puede obrar directa y eficazmente el Estado. Europeizando rápidamente al catedrático , europeizaremos al discípulo y a la nación entera.
"Una de las causas de la prosperidad de Inglaterra -me decía un profesor de Cambridge- consiste en que entre nosotros cada cual ocupa su puesto ". Lo contrario de lo que, salvando honrosas excepciones, acontece en España, en donde muchos parecen ocupar un puesto no para desepeñarlo, sino para cobrarlo y tener de paso el gusto de excluir a los aptos.
Para la obra científica los medios son casi nada y el hombre lo es casi todo.