Week of Unrest

"Week of Unrest" (Week of Unrest) is the largest protest organized by university students and teachers since 1989. Its aims are to inform the public of the catastrophic situation Czech public universities are encountering, and to support the project of universities' reform, proposed by the Czech Rectors Conference, the Council of Universities, and the Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sports. This reform is a conception solution to the lasting underfinancing of Czech public universities. It will fulfill the Czech Government's promise of the universities' priority standing. To illustrate the problem Czech public universities are facing, here are some facts: the Czech Republic's expense on public universities is 0.8% GDP, while in the EU it is 1.5% GDP, and countries such as Senegal, Kenya or Egypt spend more on their public universities than the Czech Republic does.

"Week of Unrest" takes place from March 29 to April 2, 2004 in a number of Czech university cities. As of today, Olomouc, Prague, Ostrava, Ústí nad Labem, Brno, Zlín, Liberec and Hradec Králové have joined the protest. During the "Week of Unrest" there will be a number of discussion seminars, happenings, concerts, theater and film shows and other cultural and informational events running.

Nothing more can be said of the state the Czech universities are facing now: the patience and decency traditional of the academic community is gone, we demand a change!

As of today, many top institutions and representatives of the academic and intellectual communities of the Czech Republic have declared their support of the protest.