Svetlana Matskevich: Students’ departure to study abroad will be controlled anyway

In Belarus, the order of coordination with the Ministry of Education of questions of directing students to study abroad has been cancelled. However, in practice, it does not mean that students can absolutely freely leave the country. Svetlana...

In Belarus, the order of coordination with the Ministry of Education of questions of directing students to study abroad has been cancelled. However, in practice, it does not mean that students can absolutely freely leave the country. Svetlana Matskevich, an expert of the Humanitarian Techniques Agency, candidate of pedagogical sciences, has shared this opinion with the Information Service of "EuroBelarus".

According to the information of the Ministry of Education, it is no longer required at all to coordinate with this Ministry the questions of travels to study abroad of citizens of Belarus who are students in state-run organizations. The corresponding norm is fixed by Point 2 of Article 17 of Law в„– 350-Р— "About the counteraction to human traffic". Since July 25^th, the direction of students to study abroad will be carried out according to a written permission of heads of organizations where these students are studying. These permissions will be issued in the form of an internal order or other administrative documents.

However, this cancellation is conditional, Svetlana Matskevich has noticed. "In general, this coordination was cancelled by parol about a year ago. And now, probably, the Ministry simply delegates the responsibility to rectors of universities. But the fact that the coordination order has been cancelled does not mean yet that it will not be really coordinated", she believes.

The expert has underlined that state-run universities depend on the country’s authorities.

"Basically, nobody has freed educational institutions - they are not completely independent. Rectors are not elected, but appointed; they are being supervised. Directors of schools are being controlled precisely in the same way. It turns out that this cancellation is conditional - heads of educational institutions will be periodically asked this question anyway. That is, the Ministry has just shifted the responsibility to other people, that’s all", Svetlana Matskevich has marked.

At the same time, she has underlined that students have always had a chance to defend their rights to travel abroad freely.

"If a student wants, he or she will always leave Belarus, without looking around, without asking anybody, and without addressing to anybody for permissions. It is a question of a student’s own self-determination. Basically, appealing to the new instruction, students can leave freely. Another thing is that the university administration can reproach this student for he or she has left without informing anybody. On the one hand, this norm has already been accepted officially. But I know that the administrations of universities will pike anyway. We understand perfectly that in universities there are curators from the KGB, and they will supervise this way or another those who leave", she has explained.

In other words, the innovation about studying abroad changes nothing for students themselves. Most likely, it is accepted so that western countries would stop reproaching Belarus’ Ministry of Education for its non-democratic character.

"Of course, the new norm is made public, but it is not necessary to mislead us! There is an official part and there are real processes, which take place in the educational system. For the European Union, probably, it may seem that the Ministry of Education is being democratized and makes some concessions in order to join the Bologna process or for something else. And the reality remains as it is", Svetlana Matskevich has summed up.