Practical Information

New national core curricula established for general and vocational education. Promotion of dual vocational training in collaboration with business partners; greater employer involvement in the co-financing of vocational education through the establishment of the Vocational Education Development Fund. Free textbooks provided to pupils in primary schools.

The school education reform has no implications for the higher education system. Adult education is affected insofar as education provided in schools for adults has been reorganised to fit into the new school education system.

Recently enacted legislation has introduced a number of changes in higher education. It makes a distinction between university-type and non-university HEIs based on the research grade (the highest three, A+, A or B+, required for the former, and B, C or no grade for the latter) awarded as an outcome of an external quality evaluation of research. Earlier, the distinction was based on authorisations to confer doctoral degrees granted to HEIs which fulfilled certain requirements, including a minimum number of staff with a post-doctoral degree or professorial title.

The Law has introduced two new types of programmes, dual study programmes and specialist programmes (see Chapter 8.1). The main features of first-, second- and long-cycle programmes have remained unchanged. As a transitional arrangement based on the legislation previously in force, HEIs autonomously establish programmes in the fields assigned to disciplines in which they are authorised to award post-doctoral degrees; otherwise, a permit from the minister responsible for higher education is required. As of 1 January 2022, the extent of curricular autonomy will be determined by the research grade of an HEI in the discipline to which a given field of study is assigned, and the outcome of an external programme evaluation. HEIs which have one of the three highest research grades and where outstanding quality of education has been confirmed by an external overall evaluation (see Chapter 12.2) will be free to establish a programme; others will need a permit from the Minister to do so. One of the three highest research grades is now required by the new Law for HEIs to be authorised to establish a doctoral school, which provides a new framework for doctoral training, and to award doctoral and post-doctoral degrees in a given discipline.

The Law has established the Council as a new collective governing body of a public HEI, which involves external stakeholders, in addition to the rector as the single-person authority and the Senate as the collective

governing body in place earlier. The powers of the rector have been extended as compared to the previous arrangements. The new regulations have also extended organisational and operational autonomy of HEIs with, for example, an HEI’s internal structure and management positions, except for the rector, to be established by the institution’s statutes, and decisions on how to allocate the State-budget subsidies for teaching and research taken by each HEI independently. Additional funding is now available to HEIs as part of government programmes to foster excellence in research and teaching and the development of disciplines of particular relevance to a given region. Finally, aside from quality evaluation of research, the Law provides for two types of external quality evaluation: quality evaluation of education (programme evaluation, and overall evaluation focusing on the effectiveness of internal quality assurance), and evaluation of doctoral schools (see Chapter 12.2). Overall evaluation and evaluation of doctoral schools are new processes.