Ukraine: Ministry of Education Promises to Educate Belarusians Who Are Expelled from Higher Educational Establishments for Political Reasons
Recently the vice-minister of education of the Ukraine Mykhaylo Stepko passed to the all-Ukrainian youth organization Student Brotherhood the document with the juridical grounding for the possibility of free education of the Belarusian students who are repressed by Lukashenka’s regime. It’s worth mentioning that Student Brotherhood started to demand from the ministry to give such possibility to the Belarusian students in May 2005. On 24 March 2006, after the dispersal of the tent camp of the opposition in Kastrychnitskaia Square in Minsk, the organization even picketed the Ministry of Education for it.
In response to the demands of Student Brotherhood the Ministry of Education presented the list of the documents and conditions that are necessary for continuation of education in the Ukraine by the victims of political repressions from Belarus. Among them there is: personal applications, the academic certificate, conjunction of the speciality and liquidation of academic debts in the case one has them. The ministry also emphasized that the Belarusian who will live on the territory of the Ukraine or will receive a refugee status will have the right to education equally to the Ukrainian citizens.
On 10 May the all-Ukrainian youth organization in response to the voicing of the ministry’s position concerning the possibility to educate the students who were expelled from the educational establishments of Belarus distributed the statement about its readiness to help all those who fell victims to Lukashenka’s repressions and need to continue their education in the Ukrainian educational establishments. There it is also stated that such organizations as the Young Front, Free Youth, Together and Belarusian Student Association, etc. have already applied for such support.
