Austrian Students' Association

Template:Short description Template:Infobox government agency The Austrian Students' Union by statutory body (Template:Langx, ÖH) is the general students' representative body in Austria and serves as the students' government by federal law. The ÖH is a member of the European Students' Union.

Membership in the ÖH is compulsory for every university student in Austria, including PhD candidates.

Structure

The statutes of the ÖH are regulated in a federal law, the "Hochschülerinnen und Hochschülerschaftsgesetz" (HSG).^[1]

The Students Union is structured into:

Studienvertretung: board of representatives for each study (or group of related studies). It consists of typically 5 members. person-based direct election.
Fakultätsstudienvertretung
Universitätsvertretung: board of university students representatives. list based direct election.
Bundesvertretung: National Board of the ÖH. It is elected (mainly) by the university boards.

Biannually, there are general elections. Turnout declined from about 70% in 1965 to 28.29% in the elections of 2007.

The HSG also includes regulations on the funding of the ÖH and its parts and the duties and rights of the students representatives.

1945: foundation of the ÖH^[2]
1946: first general election
1947: ÖH becomes a public statutory body
1950: ÖH obtains the right to formally examine laws concerning education
1952: first demonstration against student fees
1959: the ÖH establishes the Austrian Student Aid Foundation (also: home4students)^[3]
1962: one week strike
1973, 1975: strengthening of the position of the ÖH by new laws
1996, 2000, 2002, 2004 and especially in 2010 and 2011: demonstrations against various steps of loss of social benefits for students and legal restrictions of students representation.