Yesterday’s meeting of the “Student plenum” and UKIM with representatives of the Ministry of Education and Science was not of decisive character and the only agreement that was reached was to hold another meeting in the next few days. Meanwhile, students will continue the occupation of the faculties.
– The meeting wasn’t of decisive character. We clarified our key requirement, and it is integrally new draft on Law on Higher Education and that’s why we brought out arguments. The meeting ended with an agreement to hold a follow-up meeting. Each of the four negotiating parties should consult with their base to come to the next meeting with the conclusions. Last night we had a general plenum, on which it was decided that the occupation will continue and that will go to the next meeting with arguments because we need a new law – says Ivana Tufegdzhik of “Student plenum”.
Students think that there is room for cooperation between the negotiating parties since that government officials have agreed to have an analysis of 30 days in order to see where the old law is problematic.
– We hope that the next meeting will have a positive outcome, i.e. that we can conclude that we need a new law. We will continue occupying until they start to write the text to a new law, and this energy we will focus on writing quality new law, which will ensure quality higher education. Student’s request for the new law is not to be an external testing on students from the state, but to develop mechanisms that already exist – says Tufegdzhik.
Yesterday the conclusions of the debate of the working groups of MES and UKIM were included in a statement of few lines.
“Based on the presentations, it was agreed through open dialogue to reach common solutions for improvement and quality assurance in higher education. In this respect, it was concluded to form a working group with representatives of the University, including student and professorial plenum, as well as representatives of Ministry of Education, which within 30 days will prepare an analysis of the situation on the basis of which the concept for the preparation of legal texts for higher education will be defined. At the same time, it was agreed to hold a meeting in the same composition in the coming days,” read the statement of the Rector of UKIM Velimir Stojkovski, which was given to the reporters after the debate.
