Yesterday students went out into the streets of Kyiv, Donetsk, Rivne, Lviv, Dnipropetrovsk, Luhansk, Lutsk and other regional centers to hold protest actions. The young people are dissatisfied with the bill on higher education elaborated by the Ministry of Education, Science, Youth and Sport, allegedly with leaders of student organizations. Students assure that the current bill is little different from the previous one (against which protest actions were held in January), that their major demands were not taken into account, and that no drastic changes that would improve the quality of higher education were included. A day earlier the Mi-nistry of Education stated it didn’t see any reasons for protests, and “the attempt to speculate on this topic and bringing students out to meetings is nothing but provocation and manipulation of the public opinion,” the mi-nistry’s website states.
Meanwhile, student organizations themselves are split into two parts. Those who participated in the elaboration of the new bill fully support it, and those who were left aside and whose requests were not heard demanded that it be made void. As one of organizers of the protest action, an activist of the public movement Vidsich Anastasia
Rozlutska said, there remain major concerns about the fact that the bill doesn’t presuppose a set tuition fee for contract students. Consequently, its cost can grow each year. Moreover, one of the social demands was ignored: when dormitory payments increase, stipends should increase as well — to the level of the subsistence wage. Demands regarding the universities’ autonomy weren’t ta-ken into account either: both in terms of financing and the ability to confer scholarly degrees. Finally, there is no mention of any form of international student exchange.
Students are most unhappy with the fact that during the admission to higher educational institutions three criteria will be taken into account: the score on school-leaving certificates (which can lead to corruption at schools), a university score (but the law doesn’t specify what it is: an exam or an interview), and a certificate of external independent assessment. The latter should account for 80 percent of the final assessment. The new law will also affect teachers, who will be able to have more lectures and seminars, leaving less time for research.
Supporters of the educational bill don’t see any reasons for meetings or protests. As the head of the student fraternity of the Ostroh Academy, a member of the All-Ukrainian organization the National Student Union Ihor Dorosh pointed out, their union doesn’t support the protestors.
“Our organization supports the bill, we participated in the workgroup that elaborated it. Student organizations holding protest actions are dissatisfied with a number of petty issues which are not that important,” Dorosh adds. “The law is acceptable for it takes into account all the issues regarding students, notably the proposals regarding student self-government [which will be partially financed by higher educational institutions. — Ed.] and cancels of the notion of ‘academic plagiarism.’ We still have concerns regarding the definition of the type of higher educational institutions, whether a given institution will be a university or an academy, but I know that the new gradation of universities will be cancelled as well.”
All in all, higher education needs new legislation. But if it is approved in its current version, as the ministry suggests, sooner or later one will have to amend and revise it, experts add. So shall one do the same work twice?
