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Will University’s Autonomy Be Restored?

February 10, 2006

Will University’s Autonomy Be Restored?

The 88th anniversary of the University was celebrated differently by the professors. One part held a protest action together with political parties, the other part does not want to politicize the issue and say that the problem must be solved through a dialogue between the administration and them. Their demand though, is the same - to restore the University’s autonomy.

In accordance with the 2005 June Order of the President, the regulations of the University and Council of Scientists were abolished. The power moved to the Rector who was ordered to rule the University according the Transitional Statute.

“According to the new rule all power goes to the Rector. We claim that those transitional regulations are not implemented in the right way by the Rector and Dean of the University. The worst thing is that even this transitional regulation, which is imperfect, is violated.” - says Jemal Mebonia Former Dean of the faculty of Physics.

According to the professors, the announcement of an open competition for the place of Professor, Associated Professor and Assistant Professor is in violation of the transitional regulations. They have sued the University Administration for it. “They announced the competition in which everyone has the right to participate. According to the regulations, the Rector had to move the university’s employees to new positions. Theoretically, it is possible to remove the whole cathedra from University and attract new people. It depends on the criteria they elaborate for the competition, but only the council is empowered to elaborate such criteria, which does not yet exist.” - states Davit Karkashadze, Docent.

The competition which must have been started in November is temporally postponed. Professors are afraid that after open competition many employees will be dismissed. Acting Rector Rusudan Lortkipanidze says that this number will not be as big as they are afraid of. “The autonomy is temporally abolished and it will be restored, when we receive new people by means of the competition” - said she.
But it depends on the outcome of the trial whether the competition will start or not. Professors are afraid that they will fall into the same condition as those 1500 scientist who were moved to a grant financing system and then were deprived of those finances. “The Ministry of Education has the right to rule the University as interdepartmental organization. They stopped budget financing of the scientists and moved them to grants. Up to 1500 employees signed the contracts and after this the Ministry of Education closed down the department which had to provide them with grants” - said Maia Natadze.

Professors say that the Rector does not want to enter into dialogue with them, there is a gap between them - the University Administration on one side and the majority of University’s professors on the other.

Anna Chkhaidze

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