Education Minister to Appoint Rectors to Private High Schools

Source: www.charter97.org

Heads of private universities are to be appointed by education minister. This decision of a standing committee of the Chamber of Representatives of the National Assembly of Belarus on education, culture, science and scientific development has been announced by the committee’s chairman Uladzimir Zdanovich at a press-conference on 1 February. ‘It’s an unequivocal decision and is not to be discussed’, he said. Besides, as said by U.Zdanovich, the deputies allegedly ‘violate neither the Constitution nor any of the Codes, including the Labour Code’.

’Former heads of universities are responsible for creation of this proposal, those who generally speaking have deeply compromised the system of private higher education’, U.Zdanovich said. These heads of universities have ‘violated laws, and caused damage to students’, he specified. ‘As a deputy, I have to be engaged in the issues of redistribution of students who studied in closed universities. It was a rather painful process. We are not going to liquidate the system of private education, but demands to work of private educations institutions are and will remain to be very high,’ U. Zdanovich said. To his mind, ‘in our country education is needed not to get documents, but for the county to get at a new level of social and economic development’.

The MP stated that the norm on appointing heads of universities is stipulated in a draft law On High Education. As said by Zdanovich, ‘education minister is to appoint a head of a university and be responsible for him’. For today, he noted, this decision is taken by a founder of an educational institution.

There are 12 private universities in Belarus today, about 58 000 students study there.