UNIVERSITIES IN MERIT-BASED REFORM PLAN
UNIVERSITIES IN MERIT-BASED REFORM PLAN
(ANSA) - Rome, October 28 - A new university reform bill aims to reward merit, root out nepotism, lower the average age of professors and stop a brain drain of researchers, Education Minister Mariastella Gelmini said after the cabinet approved the bill.
She said the reform plan was ''the fruit of talks with the entire Italian university system''.
The part of the reform that ''is most close to my heart,'' she said, are efforts to give researchers permanent jobs, ''ending years of part-time contracts''.
The plan, which is opposed by some university teachers and many students, sets up an 'ethical code' aimed at stopping the hiring of relatives.
From now on, according to the plan, career advancement will not take place automatically but will be subject to peer review including assessments from outside the university.
The plan also sets a term limit of eight years for university deans; hands much decision-making previously made by tenured academics to executive boards; allows students to rate their teachers' performance and gives raises only to the most deserving academics; makes it compulsory for lecturers to clock in and out; and halves the number of curricula from the current 370.
Universities will also be allowed to merge, a move heavily criticised by students who see it as a pretext for job cuts.
If the plan is approved by parliament, appointments will be made by a national commission including top foreign academics and the hiring of researchers will be compulsory if they have proved their worth after six years on the job.
According to the latest surveys, Italy's brightest researchers are massively head-hunted by foreign universities and Italy's brain drain is far larger than in comparable countries.
Financial officers will be accountable to the Treasury and universities with crippling debts will be put under a government-appointed commissioner, empowered to act ''with zero tolerance,'' Gelmini said.
New grants will be set up for the best students, she added.
The association of university deans reacted to the plan by saying it would ''credible'' if it got the required funding.
The financial solidity of the plan depends on the success of an ongoing tax amnesty aimed at luring back foreign-held assets, Gelmini and Economy Minister Giulio Tremonti said.
Student movements protested at the cuts in curricula and said the reforms were aimed at making universities ''less democratic'' while moving them closer to the private sector. photo: Gelmini
