The fourth version of an amendment to Slovakia’s Universities Act gained support in Parliament on October 29, even though only MPs from the Slovak National Party (SNS) and Smer supported it along with one MP from the Movement for Democratic Slovakia (HZDS), while remaining members of HZDS voted against, the TASR newswire wrote.
There has been a significant change in the amendment, however, with parliament approving a proposal by Christian Democrat (KDH) MP Martin Fronc, under which the categorisation of universities will remain in the hands of parliament instead of being transferred to the government, as originally proposed by Education Minister Ján Mikolaj (SNS).
According to the approved amendment, universities will have to draw up assessment reports as of January 2010 in which they will state the shortcomings in their education techniques and suggest how to improve them and submit them to the Accreditation Committee.
The new amendment allows public universities to rent out and lease their property to businesses, TASR wrote. It also enables foreign universities to be active in Slovakia and provide accredited programmes, although they won't receive any government subsidies for this as of now. The previous amendment included a provision that would have restricted the right of private universities to handle their profits freely. TASR
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
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