All-Ukrainian student protest action

On 7 April 2016 at 11.00, an All-Ukrainian Protest Action for decent future of Ukrainian students will be held in Taras Shevchenko Park, Kyiv.

The action will by followed by the round table initiated by the Public Council of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine at 14.00 in the conference hall of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. The participants will discuss usefulness of adoption of the draft Law No. 3474 that violates rights of student trade unions and narrows the right of students to scholarship as evidences the draft Law ‘On Amendments to Some Laws of Ukraine on Financing of Higher Education (on Economic Relations in Higher Education)’ developed by the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine.

One of anti-social intentions of the draft Law is deprivation of successfully studying students of scholarship, as it provides academic scholarships only to 15-20% of full-time students enrolled for the budget. That is, only 1 billion UAH remains instead of 5-billion UAH scholarship fund. Nearly 500,000 students will be left without scholarship!

On 1 September 2016, only 100,000 ‘lucky ones’ will receive scholarship.

The Government does not listen to trade union proposals because strong and powerful trade unions are an obstacle to plans of the Government, as the issue of scholarship cuts raised already in 2014-2015, and student trade unions were the first who spoke against the initiative and won the right of young people to scholarship.

In addition, the plans of the Ministry of Education lack dormitory development programmes. The biggest impact will be on rural students.

The state is trying to interfere in the self-governing trade union organisations that unite young students and violating national laws and international standards on independence and self-government of public associations. An example is the draft Law No. 3474 ‘On Amendments to the Law of Ukraine ‘On Trade Unions, their Rights and Guarantees of Activity’ (on Activity of Student Trade Unions)’ (13/11/2015).