Rectors in Slovakia are fighting government plans to overrule universities in the conferment of degrees and academic titles.

A joint meeting of the rectors' conference and the country's ÖйúAƬ council last Friday issued a statement saying that the ministry of education had acted unconstitutionally in not discussing the reforms with the council, which consists of elected representatives from all ÖйúAƬ institutions.

Proposed changes in the ÖйúAƬ act have been the topic of a largely fruitless debate for the past two years. But the rectors say the ministry was out of order in submitting the amendments to parliament, bypassing the HEC.

The reforms would reintroduce the right, embodied in the 1977 Czechoslovakian ÖйúAƬ law, of appeal to the education ministry against university decisions on the refusal to grant doctorates and professorships.

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To the university community, this is objectionable on three counts: it opens the door to corruption and nepotism; it creates a two-tier system of higher degrees with employers checking whether applicants received a "genuine" or an "on appeal" degree; and, most importantly, it encroaches on academic freedom.

Supporters of the changes - who include prime minister Vladimir Meciar - deny that there is any such encroachment, and claim that the protests are coming from only "two or three rectors" who have a tradition of opposition to the government.

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Mr Meciar seems less than well briefed about what is at stake. Speaking on radio early last week, he implied that the protesters are against government control of university spending (they are not), and said that the changes also include the right of appeal to the ministry of education by unsuccessful applicants for university admission.

The ministry did want to introduce such a right, but it was dropped.

Mr Meciar also said on radio that academics opposing the ministry's right to intervene in the conferring of professorships were trying to curb the power of the president, who formally appoints professors.

Ferdinand Devinsky, deputy rector of the Comenius University in Bratislava, said that the statement effectively nailed the allegation that only a few protesters are involved.

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The HEC and rectors' conference represented, he said, "a certain force which speaks for hundreds of thousands of voters".

This week many academics attended a public hearing of the parliamentary committee for culture, education and sport, at which one MP suggested that the amendments be dropped from the forthcoming parliamentary session.

However, no vote was taken as the meeting was inquorate. All but two of the MPs support the amendments, but the committee has asked Juraj Svec, rector of Comenius University, himself an MP, to table a counter-proposal.

This is seen as a slight softening of the pro-government position: three weeks ago Dr Svec tried to put a counter-proposal on the agenda but was refused.

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