Universities on strike alert over the "politicisation" tendencies of academia

The leadership and Academic Senate of Comenius University in Bratislava announced on Monday that they were joining a protest against what they describe as the politicisation of universities. According to them, this threat comes via a new amendment to the University Act and the Education Ministry's funding policies towards universities pursued as of January. The University in Trnava announced a 'strike alert' over the same issue last week, and UPJŠ University in Košice supports the cause too. The Student Council of Universities on Monday called on the Education Ministry to organise a round-table discussion with universities over the draft legislation, as the bill contains several flaws that make it open to possible abuse by the state vis-a-vis the autonomy of universities. The amendment introduced by the Education Ministry plans among other things to dismiss academic senates of the individual faculties and add ministerial nominations to the university senates.