Students to protest planned university reforms

Prague, Feb 22 (CTK) - Organisers expect thousands of students to take part in protests against the planned reform of Czech universities to be held across the country next week, Jan Gruber, from the Initiative for Free Universities, said yesterday.

He said the events will be supported by theatres and publicly known personalities.

"The prepared changes will lead to a fundamental restriction of universities' autonomy for the benefit of political and economic elites and subsequently to a radical worsening of the quality of Czech tertiary education," Gruber said.

Charles University in Prague will observe rector's free day in connection with the major protest march in Prague on Wednesday, Gruber said.

There are some 300,000 university students in the Czech Republic now.

The week of unrest will start on Sunday with a debate on the state's university and culture policies that will bring together academics and artists.

From Monday until Friday next week, lectures for the public and debates with academics will be held in large towns. Students also prepare concerts, exhibitions and screening of films.

With their protests the students want to bring the government not to approve the two reform bills on universities and to return them to the education minister for reworking.

The government is to discuss the reforms in March. Prime Minister Petr Necas supported them last week.

Students and a major part of the academic community do not like the planned introduction of tuition and changes to the powers of academic bodies, and they fear interference by the commercial sphere in university education.

The reform also counts with "contract-based funding" within which universities would get a beforehand promised amount of money for several years ahead.

Under the reforms universities should orientate themselves either on research, or on education, or on graduates' future employment.