A price tag for knowledge

Students now have to pay for truancy and retaking exams. It is up to every higher educational institution to decide on the amount of the fine. This is in line with a Cabinet of Ministers resolution on paid services in higher educational institutions. Students are not exactly thrilled with such price tags because the latter infringe their legitimate right to free education and create conditions for the commercialization of studies. For this reason, students staged a protest action on October 12 in 15 Ukrainian cities, demanding that the government reverse this decision.

The students’ resentment is easy to understand because the Cabinet’s initiative authorizes universities to take money for off-time use of libraries and the Internet, even though students have to process almost two thirds of the required material in reading rooms. They will also have to pay for the use of gyms and first-aid stations, for holding concerts, and for being reinstated or transferred to another institution.

The Front of Changes leader Arsenii Yatseniuk has made an interpellation to the Prosecutor-General’s Office about the legitimacy of introducing paid services in higher educational institutions. In his opinion, these services are an integral part of the educational process and introducing payments for them runs counter to Article 53 of Ukraine’s Constitution, which guarantees the right of every citizen to education. Conversely, Dmytro Tabachnyk, Minister for Education and Science, says that the introduction of paid services is a European practice which Ukraine is now borrowing and, accordingly, truancy fees are a sign of being civilized.

The Cabinet resolution is so far in force only at Simferopol’s Taurida National University. From now on, the students of this institution must pay 900 hryvnias (almost a complete scholarship) for retaking an exam and up to 147 hryvnias for missing classes without a valid excuse. The students held a protest action in response to this “price list,” calling upon the student unions in other universities to join their resistance. The first to express their readiness to support the protest campaign were students in Kharkiv, Luhansk, Lviv, Lutsk, Ivano-Frankivsk, and other cities.

The state is thus trying to make students shoulder the burden of funding education. Student organizations believe that education will become a privilege for the rich rather than a right for everybody. Last year students managed to defend their right to free education. In 2009 the government also resolved to allow universities to introduce paid services, but mass-scale student actions forced the Cabinet to reverse its decision. Now it is President Viktor Yanukovych who demands that Mykola Azarov cancel the decision on paid services in colleges and universities. It remains to be seen if the Cabinet will obey the president’s instructions.

COMMENTARIES

Anatolii HNATOVYCH, president, National Students’ Union:

“Our organization has been categorically opposed to this resolution since it was passed because it is a glaring contradiction to the Constitution of Ukraine. It is wrong to fill budget gaps, which is in fact the current government’s policy, at the expense of students. Yet it is doubtful that the current protest campaign is appropriate because President Yanukovych has instructed the premier to reconsider this decision. But in this country, as usual, the authorities first create problems and then try to solve them, so this raises a logical question: why was this done at all? Let us hope it is not just another campaign move on the eve of the election done to pretend that the voice of the student community is influential and important for the government. Let us hope it is not a pre-election ploy, that the resolution will be repealed, and there will be no attempts to do so in the future. So far only Taurida University has introduced paid services.

A number of other small educational institutions also tried to introduce them but they have not yet enlisted the support of student self-government bodies. Many rectors are categorically against the fees for, say, missed laboratory classes because you can’t possibly cash in on such things. There is quite a long list of paid services that a university can offer, including some intended for other organizations. In other words, nobody forbids an educational institution to carry out research and engage in commerce, but not at the expense of students. We firmly assert that all that concerns students should be free of charge.”

Ihor DOROSH, chairman, student fraternity, National University of Ostroh Academy:

“It is unfair to introduce paid ser-vices for students. What about those who study on a tuition-paying basis and pay annually for their university studies? Under the resolution, they will have to pay additionally — for every reference paper, for every retake. Our institution is worried about this situation, and some student fraternity representatives have gone to Rivne for protest actions. This abrupt increase of fees in educational institutions is unacceptable for Ukraine because students are already paying. Still, if non-academic fees are unavoidable, they should be imposed gradually because this will not benefit the university much but will cost the student a pretty penny. I hope the decision will be reversed. If not, we will continue fighting.”

Tamara MELNYK, Candidate of Sciences (Linguistics), Associate Professor, Crimean Liberal Arts University:

“I am taking an ambiguous attitude to this Cabinet initiative. On the one hand, this can make lowly-motivated students improve their attitude to specialist training — right now they are studying to get a diploma, not to become a specialist. So this mechanism of pressure via the student’s pocket makes some sense. But, on the other hand, I can see a changing pattern: in the past two or three years the university has been admitting children for whom the diploma is a symbol of their own growth as a specialist. Today the student have to work somewhere else to be able to survive. If they work, they may have force-majeure circumstances, they may miss a class or a seminar, and must pay for truancy — otherwise, they will not pass the module test. This means socially-unprotected students will suffer even more. Ours is a liberal arts university, and, as a rule, our students are children of teachers and other intellectuals who are also the least protected. Almost all of them moonlight, not only in schools but also in retail outlets in order to earn a buck or two. This means they are always at risk. A student sometimes must miss a class but is unable to prove this with the use of documents. For this reason, our university is taking an utterly negative attitude to this governmental decision.”

Yaroslava PRYKHODA, Associate Professor, Department of Publishing and Editing, Institute of Journalism, Kyiv National Taras Shevchenko University:

“Money is not an effective punishment for a student. What is the use of forcing a student to do something for additional payment if they can do this anyway? If a student has a motivation for studies, they will study. When a teacher offers him knowledge, i.e., gives him a commodity, the student takes it because he is doing an internship and thus needs this knowledge. But if the teacher fails to give the required knowledge and the student sees during the internship that, for example, the newspaper Den has different demands and a format of work different to what he was told in the university, then why does he have to sit and listen to the teacher if he does not need this? I have worked for many years at Yale University, where the practice of high motivation and responsibility of students was very common. They would come up to me and say they would be absent from the next class and ask for homework. I had a day, when the students who had known the subject poorly or missed classes could come to clear their arrears. The idea of the university as an institution that provides knowledge is far more widespread abroad than here. If we want a student to form this responsibility and the mission of a highly-skilled specialist, no fees will help. This will only force parents to dip into their pockets in spite of resolving their other financial problems, for it is not so easy to educate a child.”

Vadym BABESHKO, student, Polytechnic University, Valencia, Spain:

“Here, the tuition fee of several thousand euros is 90 percent subsidized by the state. Libraries and special equipment, for example, for those who prepare video footage for a cinematic competition, are furnished free of charge. The Internet is free for all students. Yet you have to buy your own clothes and implements for sports. For example, I practice judo and hence have to buy a kimono, while those who do tennis must buy rackets. All that is connected with studies is free. Moreover, if you are doing well, you will be paid quite a sizable scho-larship. It seems to me that students study in Ukraine not thanks to but in spite of government support. There are people who want to study, and they will do this under any conditions. Our universities have very poor logistical support, and you have to achieve many things on your own. Introducing paid services, especially for a country where people are not at all well-to-do, is really too much. Paying for truancy is really a perversion of sorts because, for example, in Spain there is no such thing as expulsion from university — a student may be barred from the next year of studies and even continue studying all through his lifetime. Truancies have no impact at all on the result of studies. If a student attends classes, he is awarded additional credits, which may help him in his further career. It is the personal issue of every student whether or not to attend a class, so I think it is just an increased — and totally unfounded — form of control on the part of the state.”