Fresh wind into the Czech higher educational sector?

Czech universities are allegedly too elite-oriented. Only 9 % of children from worker families are studying at university in the Czech Republic, and thus have a six times lower chance to be accepted to university than the children of tertiary-educated parents. The new White Paper for Higher Education is supposed to remedy this situation. The draft presented by Prime Minister Topolánek on 13 May envisages opening the access to universities and their massification. It also introduces new governance and financing mechanisms, which already raised opposition among the rectors. Their main complaint is about the threatening intrusion of the state into university autonomy. The debate launched on May 13 will thus center around the broader questions of university autonomy vs. accountability, responsiveness to the labor market needs, entrepreneurial universities or the relationship between research and teaching and their funding but embed them into the Czech context.