Back to Tell’s Land (Day 5)
Day Five.
Tuesday, 19 January 2016
Small is
beautiful.
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Christian Brechbühl
Town president
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This morning,
we are taken for a walk to the primary school of Murten, after a brief
introduction to the President of the town, Mr Christian Brechbuhl, by Mr
Alexander Schroeter, President of the school commission.
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Alexander Schroeter
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It is really
fascinating visiting the place. For one thing, Murten is a German majority town
in a French majority canton of the German majority nation. So what do you do
when you have a Shan majority town in a non-Shan majority self administered
zone in a Shan majority state?
They have an answer here. The first classroom we visit is that of a
German 6th grade. The student, who’s learning English, explains to
me: “We started school with our own mother tongue. When we got to 3rd
grade, we were given a choice among the other 3 languages. Naturally, we chose
French. Last year (at 5th grade), we were asked what foreign
languages we wanted to learn, and we said English.” “So you have to learn three
languages at schools?” I ask. He says, “Yes”.
After the
classrooms, we are taken to a room which serves as a meeting hall for the
schools committee, made up of parents. It is explained to us that education is
divided among the three levels of government in the following way:
University Federal government
High schools Cantonal government
Primary/secondary Communal government
(We will
later find that with the university level, there is a mixture between the
federal and cantonal responsibilities.)
It is the
same with roads, we are told: the federal government is responsible for the
highways, the cantonal for cantonal roads, and the municipality/communal for
the local streets.
At 10:00, we
are off to Neuchatel (German name for new castle) University, another
bi-lingual learning center, 25.7 km away. Though having a German name, the
majority population there is French, probably due to ancient wars between the
two nationalities. Unlike Burma, however, no French name has been adopted in
substitution.
There, we are
received by the rector (female), a professor (also female) and a co-secretary
of the university (male). We are then treated to a power point presentation,
which I will not bother the readers with its details but only with a few
salient points:
·
According to Article 63 of the
constitution, the federal government manages the federal institutes of technology
and may “establish, take over or manage additional universities and other higher
education facilities.” It also supports cantonal universities. In addition,
both federal and cantonal governments are jointly responsible for “quality in
Swiss higher education”. As such, both must respect “the autonomy of the
universities.”
·
At the federal level, the
ministry (called department as in the United States) appoints a minister
(called Councilor) for Economic Affairs,
Education and Research
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Mr Damien
Rerat
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The University of Neuchatel, considered small, has 4,375 students, of which 960 of them come from abroad. It offers only 4 faculties: Arts and Humanities, Science, Law, and Economics.
We have lunch downtown and then we are on our way to Delemont, the
capital of Jura, 76.4 km away in the northwest, through the snow-covered
landscape. Nothing to see, so I sleep all the way.
Four police officers are waiting for us at the cantonal parliament
building. The chief, Mr Damien Rerat, says he used to be a judge. His deputy,
Ms Maria- Jane Intenza, is a lawyer by training and another who handles
criminal cases is a forensic expert. The 4th officer acts as
interpreter, as the others are speaking to us in French. There we learn how the police forces at each
level are formed, operate and are supported.
As can be
seen here, federal and cantonal law enforcement officers operate independently from
each other. “But when it comes to inter-cantonal crimes, such as cyber crimes,
cooperation is necessary”, says the chief, who tells me he’s been to Thailand
as a young man.
Of course, we
are particularly eager to learn more about the Jura police force, and they are
ready for us. Here are the details given:
Population: 70,000
# of
communes: 83
Area: 838 square
kilometers (327 square miles)
Strength: 160,
of which 145 are police officers (Bern, in contrast, has 3,000 officers being
bigger)
# of
vehicles: 50 which
includes motorcycles, patrol cars and riot control cars
“We don’t have helicopters, but we can always ask from the nearby
military unit for use, when necessary,” says Chief
Annual Expenditure: Euro
20 million, of which three quarters are spent for salaries (Enviable, isn’t
it?)
Training: One
year at the inter–cantonal police officer school, there are 6 such schools in
Switzerland
If I remember
well, he states that 25% of his workforce are women, but as my notes are
unclear here, I cannot be sure. “We have plans to increase the number of female
police officers, as they appear to be working better with the public,” he says.
Drug offenses,
meanwhile, do not pose much of a problem there. “But in major cities like Bern,
it is,” he says.
There are many questions which we still
like to ask, like how cross border crimes are being dealt with. Jura has a long
border with France. But by 18:00, our time is over. We have been there for a
little over 3 hours.
As we head back to Murten, I ask myself:
How about having an independent police force under state government with its
own laws?
Tags: Opinion
