Student Chamber of the Council of Higher Education Institutions

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Studentská komora Rady vysokých škol

Student Representation in the Czech Republic

In the Czech Republic, students of so-called HEIs – Higher Education Institutions (universities and colleges) are represented:

a) on the faculty and university levels by academic senates (this holds mainly for public HEIs),
b) on the national and international level by the Student Chamber (this holds for private HEIs as well).

Student Chamber and the Council of HEIs

The "Student Chamber" (Studentská komora - SK RVŠ) is a part of the "Council of Higher Education Institutions" (Rada vysokých škol - RVŠ), which together with the "Czech Rectors Conference" (Česká konference rektorů - ČKR) forms the official representation of Czech HEIs on the basis of Act No. 111/1998 Coll. (the Higher Education Act of the Czech Republic, Article 92).

Every HEI can enter the Council, when paying fees for its delegates. For an HEI, three delegates may be sent to the Council, one of which is a student. Besides that, for each part (faculty) of a respective HEI, one more delegate may be deputed.

An HEI’s delegates are elected for a three year term by its self-governmental body called academic senate (this holds mainly for public HEIs).

Internal Structures

The Council consists of the Assembly, Presidium and Closer Presidium, in the head of which is Chairperson of the Council.

The Chamber’s Chairperson, its two Vice-chairpersons and two more delegates of the Chamber are automatically members of the Presidium of the Council. In the Closer Presidium elected by the Assembly of the Council, the Chamber is represented by its Chairperson or Vice-chairperson.

The Student Chamber is active especially in substantial matters concerning different aspects of students life, students matters in general, and study conditions. As far as respecting the Statute of the Council, the Student Chamber is allowed to deal under its own rules of organization, and it is authorized to create its own committees as advisory bodies.

In contemporary Chamber, there are three committees: on legislation, on social and economical affairs, and on educational and scientific activities.

Objective

The basic goal of the Chamber is clear: to represent and defend interests of students from all public, state (military, police) and private HEIs. The Chamber approves its own Programme Declaration for each three year election term. Within the 2006-2008 term, the Chamber is to urge for diversified, quality, open, accessible and permeable higher education system and emphasize social dimension of studies. One of the Chamber’s proposals is disposing age discrimination related to student status (i.e. various advantages linked to student status before reaching 26 years). The main contemporary topic is the forthcoming reform of tertiary education (tuition fees, management-line governance, expansion of study opportunities etc.).

History

The Student Chamber itself was established due to the amendment to the Statute of the Council on 5th November 1992. Every HEI could then dispatch a student delegate to the Chamber, but these were not considered members of the Council. This changed in 1996 when the members of the Chamber became full members of the Council. The most recent changes came into force on 1st January 2006 including an increase to 5 delegates to the Presidium of the Council.

Partners

The Chamber’s partners in discussions concerning matters of HEIs students are: the Council, Czech Rectors Conference, Parliament of the Czech Republic, the Government of the Czech Republic and its ministries (especially "Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports" - Ministerstvo školství, mládeže a tělovýchovy - MŠMT), Accreditation Commission, academic senates and organizations acting in the field of development of academic and student community. On the international level, partners of the Chamber are also the EU institutions, European-wide student organizations ( ESU, EURODOC) and NUSs from the Visegrad group or any other NUS sharing a problem related to the situation in the Czech Republic.

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External links

* [http://www.skrvs.cz/ Student Chamber (SK RVŠ)]
* [http://www.radavs.cz/clanek.php?oblast=9&c=724/ Council of HEIs (RVŠ)]
* [http://crc.muni.cz/index.en.shtml/ Czech Rectors Conference (ČKR)]

* [http://www.vlada.cz/defaultEN.html/ Government of the Czech Republic (vláda ČR)]
* [http://www.msmt.cz/index.php?lchan=1&lred=1/ Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (MŠMT)]

* [http://www.psp.cz/cgi-bin/eng/sqw/hp.sqw/ Parliament of the Czech Republic, Chamber of Deputies (PS PČR)]
* [http://senat.cz/index-eng.php?ke_dni=04.10.2008&O=6/ Parliament of the Czech Republic, Senate (SPČR)]