"It took eight months of debates to get practically nothing," the daily Delo notes on the planned changes to the higher education act.

The key problem is that nobody actually knows what English was meant to bring; was it opening up Slovenia's higher education, as claimed by the Education Ministry, and improving the quality of universities?

Was it improving the universities' cooperation with industry or attracting enough students, whose numbers are falling despite the number of teachers and study programmes remaining the same, as claimed by university chancellors.

Or was the real reason the neoliberal commercialisation of higher education, as feared by the opponents of the change, Delo wonders.

Now it is not clear how universities would be opening up and going international, although all stakeholders are unanimous in that they should.

And if there are problems even in getting the changes to the higher education act through parliament, how will it be possible to reach a consensus on an entirely new bill on higher education which is being planned, Delo wonders.

It adds that money is "the magical ingredient" which would probably solve all the problems, including simultaneous interpreting of lecturs by foreign professors, language training for professors or Slovenian language courses for foreign students.

The daily says it is time to see how many quality universities, study programmes, professors and students Slovenia wants to have and how many it can afford. Only then will we know whether we need foreign professors and students and what we can offer them, daily Delo concludes.