Forum Digest
Talking Point
One Last Chance Remains?!
In recent days, the government's proposals for a new law on university education have been discussed by three different parliamentary committees. The drafting of the government's proposals was originally entrusted to the Minister of Education, who not only himself devoted a certain amount of time to their preparation, but also followed their progress through the parliamentary process with some thoroughness. Representatives of the Higher Education Council, the Conference of Czech Rectors and the Club of University Deans, were intensively involved in drawing up the fundamental principles of the policy, which ensured that there was a broad consensus regarding the form of the proposals. It is clearly unnecessary to point out that the discussions were extremely lengthy, and that the final version of the proposals, which the Minister presented to the government, were above all acceptable to the academic community. The government has debated the proposals in three sittings, the results of which have been certain changes -- which, alas, in some regards have altered the design of the law very substantially.
If we set aside minor amendments (such as, for example, those relating to the granting of academic titles), the changes which the government has made concern the following questions:
- In the proposed policy, the principle of the universities' academic autonomy is not clearly formulated, which is understood by the academic community as a step backwards in relation to the present state of affairs, a reinforcement of the centralising tendencies of the state, and most of all a threat to academic freedom;
- Closely related to this objection, is the fact that the proposal for a unified representative of the universities being included as a mandatory partner of the Ministry in all discussions relating to the universities, has been deleted;
- The question of the Accreditation Board has been transferred into the executive powers of the organs of the Ministry. In order to preserve the independence of academic assessment in the accreditation process, the original proposals devised relatively complicated procedures for certain indispensable parts of the process, which were intended to minimalise inexpert interventions from the side of the administration;
- The introduction of school fees in the form of compulsory payments, which will replace part of the funds that the universities receive from the state budget, changes the sense of these arrangements from that in which they were originally formulated. The organs of the academic community have expressed their disagreement with the introduction of school fees as compulsory payments which they will be required to use to pay their fundamental overheads.
In the discussions of the parliamentary committees, some progress was made regarding the question of university autonomy. Regarding the other points, however, the parliamentary committees agreed with the text which was presented by the government, even over the extensive explanations that were offered to them by the representatives of the academic community. The other comments of the deputies were of a more or less cosmetic character and did not touch on the substance of the problem. The one chance that remains to us is that we can explain our position to the deputies before the proposals are finally debated and passed into law...
Doc. Ing. Ivan Wilhelm, CSc.
Pro-Rector for the Development of Charles University
(vol. 1, no. 6, 1995)
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