The AStA — a huge apparatus
You have arrived at the official homepage of the Student Body Council (AStA) at the Free University of Berlin. We offer you advice and help and try to represent your individual and collective interests as students (to come).
AStA — what is that? "AStA" is an acronym for Allgemeiner Studierenden Ausschuss, which means "General Student Council". It is elected once a year by the student parliament and "administers the affairs of the student body" according to the university law of the state Berlin. In the first instance, this means that it scoops up money from the students every semester — 7 Euro from each to be exact. Consequently the AStA disposes of about 550,000 Euro per year. But one is offered quite a lot for that.
After all, the AStA has some rather important tasks assigned by the Berlin university law, namely:
- to enable the opinion shaping among the students as a group;
- to take a stand in matters of science and university politics;
- to foster the students' political education as well as their willingness to active tolerance and to stand up for human and civil rights;
- to attend to the cultural, scientific, economic and social interests of the students;
- to foster the integration of non-German students;
- to promote university sports;
- to cultivate student relations on a supra-regional and international scale;
- to foster the achievement of the studying goals.
Of course, for this a corresponding infrastructure is required: a print shop, telephones, fax, a copying device, computers, coffee machines, desks, beer, toilets (be careful: all guys have to sit down!), ballpens, radios, load bikes, sliding rules, rubbers, stamp pads, etc.
The maintenance of infrastructure always involves fix costs so that the AStA budget, on first sight, looks like more as is actually available for political work.
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last update: Feb 1, 2005 12:17 am