TRADE UNION OF SCIENTISTS BACKS GOVT'S DECREE ON SPLIT POLYTECHNIC

ZAGREB, Oct 28 (Hina) - The Croatian trade union of scientists and university and tertiary education staff has said it supports the government's decision to incorporate Split Polytechnic into Split University. The union added that university lecturers and professors in the country were wondering why the government and the science ministry had not acted sooner and prevented the creeping aggression of the polytechnic's leaders against the system of science and tertiary education. #L# "Split Polytechnic is the embodiment of everything that tertiary education in Croatia must not be - an uncontrollable institution which is not accountable for the quality of the public service it is providing. It (the polytechnic) functions without approved curricula and elected lecturers, it does not meet a series of legal obligations and does not recognise the scientific authorities in the country. As a result, it represents unfair rather than desirable competition in the system of higher education," the union wrote in a press release on Tuesday. The institution does not behave as an institution of education, but as a profit-oriented business enterprise, which offers on the market something which is not traded in a civilised society, namely education as a human right and public interest. "While elsewhere in the world students hold protest rallies against the privatisation of education and for public education, deluded students in Croatia are doing the opposite. This also testifies to the immaturity of Croatia's society as well as to the condition of the system in which students do not understand their own interests nor the objectives and ideals of the society they live in," the press release read. (hina) ms sb