The Österreichische Hochschülerinnen- und Hochschülerschaft, abbreviated ÖH, is the Austrian Students´ Union and is the general students’ government body in Austria by federal law. It represents the interests of the Austrian students on faculty, university, national and international level. Similar to other chambers in Austria (eg. AK, WKO, LK, ÖAK, BAIK, ect...), membership is compulsory, including PhD candidates., thus all 330 000 students studying in Austria are members of the ÖH.

Structure

The bodies of the ÖH includes:

• The Federal Assembly (Bundesvertretung - BV) which elects the Federal Executive Committee, made up of the chair team, officers, advisors and staff and is situated in Vienna.
• 21 University Assemblies which in turn elect their executive committee
• 21 University of Applied Sciences Assemblies which elect their executive committee
• 14 Colleges of Education Assemblies which also elect their executive committee
• In addition to the university and federal representation each of the university types in Austria have also elected student representations on faculty and course (course group) level.
• The ÖH Federal Representation participates in the work of the European Students´ Union (ESU)

Elections

The ÖH holds university elections at all university representation levels every two years in spring where factions compete for to get elected into university assemblies. The colleges of education and universities of applied science hold an election every year where individuals compete to be elected. The universities then elect their federal assembly delegates according to the local election results. The federal assembly delegates can choose to join together to form clubs that usually reflect the faction at university level. Some delegates do not belong to a club.

Clubs

Currently there are nine clubs in the ÖH federal Assembly, some clubs are close to political parties in Austria or are party sub organizations, some are aligned to a political ideology or philosophy and some are independent. Here are current clubs listed in delegate strength order (EC 2011-2013)

• Aktionsgemeinschaft (AG)
• Unabhängige Fachschaftslisten Österreich (FLÖ)
• Grüne & Alternative Studenten (Gras)
• Fraktion Engagierter Studierender (FEST)
• Verband sozialistischer Studenten Österreichs (VSSTÖ)
• Junge Liberale Österreich (JuLis)
• Ring Freiheitlicher Studenten (RFS)
• Kommunistischer Student_innenverband – Linke Liste (KSV LiLi)
• Kommunistischer Studentenverband (KSV)

The Federal Executive Committee of 2011 to 2013 is supported by a coalition of FLÖ / Gras / FEST / VSSTÖ.

The two ESU delegates are assigned to the strongest and second strongest club unless the strongest club has twice as many federal assembly delegates as the second.

History

In Austria-Hungary student clubs were present along ethnic populations, with for example a German student club and a Slovenian student club in the University of Graz. From 1919 to 1945 Austrian university representations where members in the German Student Union (Deutsche Studentenschaft - DSt) which from 1931 onwards was dominated by the faction National Socialist German Students' League. In 1945 the DSt was disbanded and the ÖH was founded.

• 1946: The first general election was held
• 1947: ÖH becomes a public statutory body
• 1950: ÖH obtains the right to formally examine laws concerning education
• 1959: the ÖH establishes the Austrian Student Aid Foundation (home4students)
• 1961 the ÖH founded together with Universities and the Ministry for Education the Österreichische Austauschdienst-Gesellschaft (OeAD)
• 1973, 1975, new federal laws strengthen the position of the ÖH
• 1982 the ÖH is one of the seven founding members of WESIB, today’s ESU.
• 1995 the ÖH elects its first female chair, Agnes Berlakovich of VSSTÖ
• 2002 the new laws remove direct election of the ÖH Federal Assembly and weakend the position of the ÖH
• 2012 tuition fees by universities are removed because the federal law regulating them is lifted by the constitutional court (fees are still in place at some colleges and universities of applied sceince)