Senate submitted 84 amendments: Seeks that the KS Government appoints four instead of six members of the UNSA Board of Directors

The Senate of the University of Sarajevo submitted to the KS Government, via the Ministry of Education, Science and Youth of KS, 84 amendments to the Draft Law on Higher Education and requested a postponement of the Draft's further procedure until consensus on the text of the law is reached, writes the Bosnian news agency Patria.

Among the amendments is one that a natural person cannot establish a higher education institution, which was possible under the proposed Draft.

Also, one of the most significant amendments concerns Article 132, the composition of the Board of Directors of a higher education institution.

The Senate has now requested that four members be appointed to the Board of Directors on behalf of the KS Government as the founder, instead of six as was previously the case, along with one student representative and six members appointed by the UNSA Senate, totaling 11 members.

In this current manner, the autonomy of the university is being lost, something the academic community has been warning about for years.

One of the amendments also relates to the adoption of the Statute, and the academic community holds the view that the Senate should determine the text together with the opinion of the Board of Directors, but that the Senate is not bound by the opinion of the Board of Directors, although it is obliged to respect this obligation for the procedure to be lawful.

- The existing solution gives the Board of Directors a position of "co-decision," which is contrary to Article 31, paragraph 2 of the Draft.

A large number of amendments concern student rights, exam periods, and methods of knowledge assessment, in which the Senate has presented a series of criticisms of the proposed Draft.

Also, the Senate requests the abolition of grading the final thesis, given that a student defends the thesis with a grade of 9 or 10, while during their studies they have an average of 6.5. It has been requested that the final thesis within the first, second, and third cycles of study be graded as "successfully defended" or "not defended."

Furthermore, the Senate has requested a change to the provision that a student can repeat a year only once, after which they lose their full-time student status.

- Such a legal solution would affect an increase in the number of students who drop out of studies due to the inability to finance them.