Position
papers
Students’ position on the federal government’s austerity measures
The Swiss Student Union strongly opposes the planned increases in tuition fees: they jeopardize equal opportunities, disadvantage students with lower incomes, and weaken Switzerland as a center of innovation and business. Instead of cuts, investment is needed in education, fair and accessible study conditions, and a strong scholarship system. Education is not a cost center, but an investment with a high social impact.
Scholarships
Education is a social good that should be accessible to all. According to the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the right to education is a human right (Art. 13 UN Covenant I and Art. 26 UDHR). Especially in a prosperous country like Switzerland, it must be possible to grant everyone access to this good. In concrete terms, this means that everyone should be able to benefit from educational opportunities at all levels – from elementary school to higher education – regardless of their social background and economic background.
University admission for student refugees
Refugees with a foreign educational background face disproportionately high barriers to accessing higher education in Switzerland. The current conditions only allow above-average motivated and talented individuals to enter or re-enter higher education. A wide range of stakeholders are now campaigning for faster and more effective integration of refugees into the labor market. The number of people affected is relatively small and the costs and administrative effort involved in getting them into higher education can be high. As a result, integration into the education system, and in particular into higher education, is left out as a measure. The VSS criticizes this fact, as there are many individual, social and economic reasons for more appropriate access to higher education for qualified refugees.
Housing situation
The opportunity to study must be open to all people regardless of their social and financial situation. As many students have to leave their parents’ home to study, this also includes guaranteeing available and affordable housing. Rent accounts for a significant proportion of living costs for students and can only just be covered by many. In extreme cases, the lack of affordable housing means that people in weak financial circumstances are unable to study. The Association of Swiss Student Bodies is committed to improving the housing situation and thus ensuring fairer access to higher education. You can find an analysis of the situation and specific demands for universities, cantons and cities in our position paper.
Sustainability
Universities have a social responsibility. They educate future decision-makers, generate knowledge and innovation through their research and influence public opinion. The Swiss Association of Student Organizations for Sustainability (VSN) and the Association of Swiss Student Bodies (VSS) encourage universities to take this responsibility seriously and call on them to view this social responsibility not only as an obligation, but also as an opportunity. As an opportunity to present society with scope for action that is sustainable and viable for the future. As part of their collaboration, the VSN and VSS have drawn up goals for Swiss universities. These goals relate to the following seven (7) areas: student participation, education and teaching, university management, research and development, infrastructure and everyday university life, real-world laboratory and innovation, and university policy. With this positioning, the students would like to contribute to the integration of sustainable developments in Swiss universities at all structural levels.
Studying with a disability
Equal access to education, regardless of criteria not directly relevant to education such as gender, socio-economic or regional origin, age, culture, sexual orientation or physical and mental condition, is still not guaranteed everywhere. For this reason, the members of the VSS Social Commission have drawn up a position paper with the support of people responsible for the integration and compensation of students with disabilities at Swiss universities. The universities and the student bodies at the universities are called upon to remove the obstacles for students with a disability or chronic illness and to promote their participation in the student bodies.
Third-party funds
The Swiss Student Union has always been concerned with the financing of universities. Education and science are central values of a society. As a public good, they must be primarily publicly funded. However, third-party funding is currently growing much faster than basic state funding, although the latter in particular has to finance the sharp rise in student numbers. State funding is increasingly being awarded on a competitive basis. In addition, the call for more (private) third-party funding has become ever louder in recent years. The VSS is aware of the importance of third-party funding in the current university landscape. Particularly in application-oriented areas, cooperation with third-party partners is sometimes unavoidable in terms of content.
Economization paper
As a political organization and representative of students, the Association of Swiss Student Bodies (VSS) operates in this environment and critically points out the political intention and the discrepancy between it and the structural implementation. The central point is that the demand for democratization and open, fair access to education is still highly relevant to society today. What the VSS sees as a trend towards economization has real consequences for educational structures and social reality. Education is a public good that should be accessible to all according to inclination and ability. For decades, the VSS has taken a clear stance against privatization and economization and their effects on higher education, calling for co-determination and transparency. Based on previously developed positions and ongoing critical analysis and reflection, the VSS takes a stand in this paper on the increasing economization of education. This paper provides a brief overview of the theoretical background, discusses the concept of the education market and describes European processes such as GATS, Lisbon and Bologna and their impact on the Swiss higher education landscape.
University rankings
The Association of Swiss Student Bodies has been dealing with the increasing competition between universities for several years. These university rankings play a major role in this competitive situation. These rankings promote the economization of universities and, as a result, an “education market” is developing. The VSS strongly opposes the economization of education.
