Charter of University Student's Rights and Duties
Article 1
General principles and guarantees
- Students are the bearers of inalienable rights insofar as they are citizens of the university community. The University promotes positive action aimed at removing the causes of discrimination.
- Students are recognised equal dignity with respect to other components of the academic community.
- The University pledges to provide students, within the limits of the finances at its disposal, with all the means necessary to promote access at every level of study, including the organisation of activities necessary to ensure that students receive a satisfactory academic education and are able to achieve their learning objectives.
- The full university citizenship of students is expressed by means of the principles of autonomy, self-management, participation, and freedom of expression and action.
- The academic bodies, each within the scope of its respective competence, are guarantors of genuine protection of students’ rights.
Article 2
The University community
- Students have the right and duty to take a full and active part in the life of the university community, to participate in the competent bodies, in the evaluation of the education system, and in the decisions concerning teaching in accordance with the statutory provisions and regulations.
- All students may assemble in meetings to discuss freely in places of study, after receiving authorisation from the competent academic authority bearing in mind institutional considerations.
- Students take part in the life and democratic government of the University through their representatives in the governing bodies.
- The University provides elected student representatives with dedicated rooms and facilities for carrying out their institutional activities.
- Students must respect the rooms, facilities and equipment of the University ensuring their functionality and decorum.
- Opinions on matters which, in accordance with the provisions currently in force, require the pronouncement of a body where there is an equal number of academic staff and students are expressed by the teaching councils, or by some other council or body where there is an equal number of academic staff and students, to be set up in accordance with the Departmental regulations.
- Disabled students enrolled at the university are guaranteed, in accordance with the provisions currently in force and within the limits of the University’s finances available, specific technical and teaching support as well as the assistance of a dedicated specialised tutoring service, including through agreements with outside bodies. For this purpose the University provides an office for assisting disabled students.
- Foreign students enrolled at the University may take part in university life without any form of discrimination. The University provides an office for welcoming and assisting foreign students.
Article 3
Teaching system
- The guide to the University of Bari Aldo Moro must normally be published and be accessible by the first week of September, and it must contain: the teaching schedule, full details of the study programmes available, the names of members of academic staff and their respective office addresses, the administrative offices concerned with the organisation of teaching and the names of the staff, the presentation of the various Departments, details about student representation associations, libraries, IT laboratories, and all information necessary for students to be able to plan their studies.
- The timetable for lessons must be published in a timely and accessible way before the courses begin.
- All information of a general nature must be published on the University website; all information of a specific nature and any variation must be communicated as soon as possible to all students through the website of the Department or body responsible for the organisation of the study programme in question.
- Students are guaranteed the concrete possibility of attending lessons. To this end, all physical obstacles preventing access to buildings by the disabled will be removed for the attendance of lessons, examinations, libraries and university spaces in general. To the same end, the joint teaching committees try to ensure a rational distribution of teaching hours, as well as verifying that there is a substantial correspondence between the course and the number of credits assigned for each subject.
- The University must guarantee the availability of all the texts for suggested reading on the various courses, and ensure that they can be freely accessed in the library of the Department or relevant teaching body.
- Within the limits of the financial resources available, the University guarantees for its students IT and multimedia facilities, as well as other teaching facilities that will help students with their studies and research.
- All members of academic staff are available for receiving students for clarifications and orientation activities at pre-established times that are made public before the start of each teaching semester.
- The University guarantees for students adequate orientation activities and tutoring. Tutoring activities are organised so that they do not interfere with the carrying out of teaching.
- Within the limits laid down by the provisions currently in force, students have the right to choose which subjects they wish to study as part of their study programme. Students are entitled to manage autonomously their own cultural and learning activities. Genuine participation in such activities entails the attribution of credits as laid down by the bodies specifically concerned with the organisation of the study programme.
- The teaching hours of compulsory subjects and, in general, the teaching hours of other optional subjects taught during the same teaching period and in the same year of the course must be distributed so as not to clash as regards the timetable of lessons for the same study programme.
- Attendance is compulsory only in cases expressly laid down by the current provisions in force. Consequently, in all other cases no arbitrary or unjustified form of discrimination may be made between attending students and non-attending students.
- In compliance with the provisions regulating the study programme, students may make an agreement with the member of academic staff concerning the subject and the length of time required for writing a thesis, and students must have access to all the means necessary for successfully completing their thesis.
- Students must comply with the regulations concerning teaching activities, follow the advice of the member of the academic staff in order to have an adequate preparation in the subject matter, actively take part in the teaching and learning activities prescribed, and carry out their studies with a sense of critical awareness.
Article 4
Examinations
- Students are entitled to an unbiased evaluation by means of examinations which must be transparent and in keeping with the curriculum, the learning objectives and the ways the study programmes are carried out.
- Students have the right to be examined by a commission made up of at least two members and, where this is required, by the President of the commission. In any case, the identity of the examiners must be made known to the students when the commission is appointed.
- Each study programme must provide for a number and temporal distribution of examinations that are sufficient to guarantee students the possibility of planning in a reasonable and efficient way their own learning activities and preparation for examinations. Save in exceptional cases, examination dates for core subjects relating to the same teaching period and the same year of the study programme must generally not overlap.
- A student who has to do two or more examinations on the same day has the right to be able to do the examinations in a compatible way, except in circumstances where there is the objective impossibility of so doing.
- Students have the right to sit examinations on the days laid down for doing examinations in accordance with the provisions of the University teaching regulations. The dates of the examinations and the composition of the examination commission must be published before the start of the lessons for the semester in which the course is taught. It is not allowed to change any examination date to an earlier date than the one specified. It is, however, possible to postpone an examination date to a later date as long as it is motivated and communicated by the President of the commission either to the Head of Department or to the professor responsible for the study programme, and immediate and adequate notice is given.
- Compulsory attendance for the purpose of the examination in question may be personally certified by the student if it is not possible for the competent offices to obtain such certification rapidly.
- Students are entitled to receive all the information concerning their study programme before the start of the course itself. The examination must be based on the course programme, the content of which must be fully listed as part of the teaching material provided by the teacher and must be opportunely publicised as well as being published in the University guide. Samples and requisites of written examinations with solutions are published online by the President of the commission after the written examination itself.
- Students are entitled to know the reasons given by the examination commission for their mark. They are also entitled to see their own written examination papers.
- The mark given for each examination must not be conditioned by the outcome of previous exams. To this end the commission may only see the marks a student has obtained for other examinations at the end of the examination in question. The commission is not allowed to verify what teaching material the student has brought with him/her at the moment of the examination.
- A student has the right to refuse a pass mark for an examination taken without this jeopardising his/her academic career as a student: in such cases the examination must be annotated as ‘not concluded’ only for statistical purposes and in order to certify the activity carried out by the teacher. A failed examination is not registered on the student’s card and does not influence his/her academic career as a student.
Article 5
Student fees
- Students participate in financing the University by paying fees and other contributions.
- Students are entitled to pay fees in a way that is fair and based on the criteria of income and recognition of merit.
- Students are entitled to know precisely and clearly the criteria and calculation mechanisms which determine the fees they are required to pay.
- Students are entitled to know in advance the deadline for payment of each instalment.
- Students are obliged to declare truthfully to the University the incomes and assets of their family household.
Article 6
Evaluation
- The University encourages evaluation by students of their study programmes, including examinations. The compilation and distribution of questionnaires is carried out, for each teaching period, in such a way that students are guaranteed total anonymity. The University regulations determine the procedures for ensuring that the results are publicised.
- It is the duty of every student to fill in the questionnaires and to reply in a serious and responsible way.
Article 7
Electoral rights
- All students enjoy active and passive electoral rights for the election of student representatives on joint bodies. Passive electoral rights are regulated by the provisions which ensure periodic changes of student representatives.
- University bodies must publicise well in advance and ensure adequate diffusion in accordance with the provisions laid down in the University’s general regulations of the following: the rules and deadlines for presenting one’s candidacy, the date of the election, the lists of candidates, the opening and closing times of the polling booths, where the polling booths are situated, and the ways of participating in the vote.
- University elections must be held in periods and in ways that guarantee a maximum turnout.
- The University must guarantee that there are sufficient opportunities for electoral propaganda, including areas in every building where posters can be put up.
- Student representatives have the right and duty to participate in the academic bodies that they are part of. In the case of a clash with lessons or laboratory activity or internship, the student in question is exonerated from compulsory attendance for that day. In the case of a clash with examinations, the student has the right to sit the examination on another day as long as he/she sits the examination with the same commission.
Article 8
Part-time students and worker students
- Students who cannot study full time and who are unable to attend lessons may ask, by filling in a written form which must be handed in to the teaching secretariat of their Department, to be recognised as part-time students without undergoing any type of discrimination.
- For each subject the teacher responsible for the course fixes, where this is possible and necessary, extra hours for receiving part-time students at times compatible with their needs, over and above the hours already fixed for receiving full-time students.
- In cases where it is proven to be impossible for a part-time student to sit an examination on the dates established, the student in question may make an agreement with the teacher responsible for the course to fix a time and date that is compatible with the student’s needs, as long as the examination is public and transparency is guaranteed, and only after authorisation in accordance with the provisions laid down by the University regulations.
Article 9
Placements and internships for students
- In accordance with current legislation, students may be required to do a placement or internship where this is provided for as part of their study programme, and according to the teaching aims that have been established. Placements and internships are to be carried out bearing in mind the time required for study and taking into account, where possible, the socio-economic circumstances of the student.
- The University stipulates agreements with the bodies offering placements and internships and formulates learning projects that are in line with the present Charter. These projects must be presented in sufficient detail. The student works alongside but does not replace the employee(s) working at the host organisation.
- The placement activity must be compatible with the other learning activities that are institutionally provided for according to the procedures laid down by the competent teaching bodies.
- The number of agreements stipulated by the University must be sufficient to meet the needs of those students who are required carry out placement activities.
- In accordance with current legislation, students are entitled to insurance against accidents and third-party responsibility in the facilities where placements and internships are being hosted.
- The agreement signed with the host organisation allows for the possibility of suspending placement, if a student asks for such suspension, for proven teaching demands and bearing in mind that the total number of hours of training will remain the same.
- In those bodies that have competence in the fields of placement and internship, a sufficient number of student representatives is guaranteed.
- Students evaluate their placement and internship by means of questionnaires distributed at the end of the training period, and the results are examined exclusively by the competent academic bodies.
- Worker students may have their working activity recognised as their placement or internship as long as the activity comes within the learning objectives of the study programme in question, and after the competent body has given its approval.
- Students are required to carry out properly the activities provided for in the learning project, respecting the regulations of the host organisation and the rules concerning hygiene, safety and health in work areas. Students must also maintain secrecy concerning data and information acquired during the placement or internship.
- In cases of failure to comply with the present Charter on the part of the host organisation, the student may turn to his/her tutor.
Article 10
Student mobility
- Student mobility is promoted between universities, both Italian and foreign, as well as with European and international institutions, by means of programmes and projects stipulated by institutional partners or offered by Ministries, the European Union and international organisations. In cooperation with the Regional Council and competent Ministries, the University acts in order to encourage mobility and to remove those obstacles deriving from the economic and social conditions of individuals, in particular by promoting positive actions in favour of disabled students. The University is committed to stipulating agreements with public and private organisations in order to improve students’ lives.
- The University recognises, in the student’s transition between identical or similar study programmes, the credits obtained at another university belonging to the national university system, in conformity with the characteristics of the student’s study programme and within the limits of current legislation.
- Students are informed in detail about the opportunities for going on periods of study abroad as well as the conditions and facilitations available. Students have the right to be informed about the procedures for transparent selection for access to mobility grants, and the eligibility criteria must be clearly stated for each application.
- The Erasmus contact professor for each study programme has the duty of identifying in partner organisations those courses which are coherent with the student’s learning objectives.
- The University helps students in fulfilling the administrative obligations that are required in order to undertake the period of study abroad.
- As a form of co-financing, students authorised to undertake an Erasmus period of study are given a grant that is supplementary to the one provided by the European Union. This co-financing must take into account the student’s economic conditions and, as a rule, the differences in the cost of living in the various host countries. The University encourages other forms of international mobility for its own students.
- In the agreement between the University and the host organisation there must be no financial onus for the student during his/her period abroad regarding enrolment, attendance of classes, examinations and access to libraries and laboratories.
- The University is required to provide students with supplementary grants before their departure.
- Students’ credits acquired at foreign universities are recognised as long as they are part of a prior learning agreement, including possible changes in compliance with current regulations.
- Erasmus students are required:
a) to respect the rules and obligations laid down in the Erasmus Agreement stipulated between the parties;
b) to ensure that any change in the learning agreement has already been approved in writing both by the sending organisation and by the host organisation;
c) to spend, except in cases of justified grounds, the entire period of study/placement with the host institution, taking the examinations and other forms of assessment, as well as respecting the rules and provisions regulating such matters;
d) to write, on completion of the period of study/placement, a report on the period spent abroad and to provide the University with a report if required to do so.
11.The University ensures that foreign students have exchange programmes on the same conditions as those of its own students as well as providing tutoring activity.
Article 11
Transitional and final provisions
- Any breach of this present Charter may be notified to the bodies regulated by the University Statute.
- The provisions of this Charter also apply to postgraduate courses insofar as they are compatible.
- The present Charter must be widely publicised in all teaching facilities through websites and be included in teaching guides. A copy of the guide is distributed to each student when he/she first enrols. For the academic year 2017/2018 the Charter must be sufficiently publicised for all students who have enrolled.
- The Charter must be acknowledged by the University Regulations and by the Department Regulations within 90 days of its approval.