Students: Authorities ignore our demands

Minister of Education Mihail Zhuraukou criticized students’ protest actions on December 14, Euroradio reported. Students protested against having to pay for retaking exams. The initiators of the protests are making use of the authorities’ calm reaction to various tricks, he said. They need to be ‘more aggressive’ when reacting to such actions, the Minister believes.

Participants of the Movement ‘Students Are Against It’ are disappointed with the Minister’s words. “We thought that Zhuraukouski was a European Minister who would reform the Belarusian higher education and unite with students. But he seems to be just another bureaucrat who will go his own way and will not allow students to participate in decision-making,” one of the initiators Yauhen told Euroradio.

There was no calm reaction to the students’ protests, the young man thinks:

Yauhen: “They did not offer negotiations or a consensus. They simply ignored our demands and our desire to start a dialogue. I’d like to know what they meant by being more aggressive. It sounded like an appeal for physical violence and aggression, my friends say. It is weird to hear such things from the Minister of Education.”

The Minister’s reaction means that neither university administrations nor the Ministry of Education are ready to work with students on equal terms and take students’ opinion into account at the moment, Yauhen thinks.

BSU students sent a petition to the university administration in November. They are against having to pay for retaking examinations. They are preparing to lodge a complaint to the public prosecutor's office now. More and more students from different universities keep joining the movement, Yauhen said. If their demands are ignored, students may come out on streets again after the end-of-term examinations.