Yulia Herashchenko
Students from ATO zone universities demand a simplified system of transfer to other universities and institutes in the country. Such a system exists for Crimean citizens. The Ministry for Education asks the students to wait. They are hoping for a quick end to the conflict within the country. Where will the youth of Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts study?
Special circumstances demand special measures be taken, thinks senior student of Luhansk National University Daryna. She understands that it will be impossible for her to start studying at her university on time and hopes to get transferred to another one. The transfer system for Crimean students to universities of continental Ukraine was simplified and worked efficiently. The girl says Donbas students expected the same.
“There is war on Donbas. I studied there, I want to continue studying. So I am transferring to another university, as there is no way to study in Luhansk now. The simplified system doesn’t work for us like it did for Crimean students, now I don’t even know whether I can study for free,” says Daryna.
A Crimean students who wanted to transfer to another university simply had to write a petition to the dean of the university they were transferring from and the dean of the university where they were transferring. However, a “full document package” is demanded of ATO zone students.
“I already wrote a letter to the dean of another university, it is being examined now, I will await the decision,” says Daryna.
Students are asked to wait
The Ministry of Education called for Ukrainian universities to encourage transfers of Donbas students, however hey cannot guarantee that their study grant would be preserved. The students are instead asked to wait with the implementation of the simplified procedure. The Ministry hopes that the situation in the zone will be regulated by September, and meanwhile universities are to accept documents from refugees on general conditions.
“Regarding the students from Donbas: we did not make any decision regarding preferences and general transfers. No talk of transfer with the retention of the grant. We made the decision that if some number of students is unable to return to their universities, as combat is underway there, we will allow them to study at universities in the cities where they ended up. However, this is temporary. They will have some sort of arbitrary audit status there, so that they can then go back with their grades,” Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine Sergiy Kvit told Radio Liberty.
Volodymyr Kovtunets, expert in the external examination program, thinks that the issue will be solved with the new educational law.
“The Ministry should act in the spirit of the new educational law. So give maximum freedom to the deans. Later, the should redistribute educational grants according to the number of students that transfer from Donetsk or Crimean universities to other institutions. When the situation in Donbas stabilizes, they will transfer to Donbas educational institutions,” noted Kovtunets.
The new law will enact a new system of European universities wherein the Education Ministry gives financing to universities according to the number of students that came to study, experts say. As such, a student of Luhansk National University will be able to take advantage of their right to education in any university of the country: be it Kyiv, Kharkiv or Odesa.
Source: Radio Liberty
Translated by Mariya Shcherbinina.
