“Professorial plenum” sent a letter to European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Youth and Sports, Tibor Navracsics, European Commissioner for Enlargement of the European Union, Johannes Hahn, and the head of the EU delegation in the country, Aivo Orav, urging them to state their opinion and to appeal to the Government to withdraw the proposed Law on higher education and start a new, broad and transparent debate with the participation of all parties involved in the educational process.
“We, more than five hundred professors from various universities in the Republic of Macedonia, organized as a Professorial plenum, refer to you to point out the absurdity of the processes for the so-called reform of higher education in Macedonia and to invite you to give us support in preventing authoritarian attempts of the Government to threaten the autonomy of universities and put even this segment of society under its control”, reads the letter.
The letter says that the package of laws that are already in the process of adoption in the Assembly are prepared in a fully non-transparent manner, in violation of legal procedure, request for declaration of opinion within absurdly short deadlines, without a public debate and without the participation of academic and professional community, students and other parties involved in the educational process.
“With mass protests, more than ten thousand students from almost all universities and faculties, organized indigenous “Student plenum” opposed the most controversial measures in the Law on higher education. On these protests, it was clearly announced to the authorities that quality reform of the quality of higher education cannot be done without the participation of students as partners in the process of creation of knowledge”, reads the letter.
