Another scandal broke out in Ukraine related to the optimization of higher education institutions. Employees and students of the Lviv National University of Nature Management (LNUP) are actively trying to cancel the decision of the Ministry of Education and Science (MES) to reorganize their educational institution, which was made without proper consultation with the university management.
On September 26, the Cabinet of Ministers approved proposal Ministry of Education and Culture regarding the joining of LNUP to Lviv National University of Veterinary Medicine and Biotechnology named after S. Gzhitskyi. The MES argues for this decision by the fact that a new competitive university is being created, which will be based on two sites – in Lviv and Dublin. This institution should train specialists for the agricultural sector, veterinary medicine and the development of high-tech innovations.
The Ministry of Education also stated that the reorganization was agreed with the management of both universities, all study conditions for students are maintained and the rights of employees are guaranteed in accordance with the law.
However, this decision caused significant opposition among the LNUP university community. The university team sent an appeal to the President of Ukraine, the Prime Minister, the Verkhovna Rada and the Ministry of Education and Culture with a request to postpone the accession until the end of martial law. The appeal states that there is no economic justification for the decision, there are risks of loss of property and land, as well as deterioration of the quality of educational services and the image of the university. Of particular concern is the university’s status as a city-forming city in Dublyany.
In addition, the LNUP team expressed concern about the possibility of losing valuable land, which had already happened during previous reorganizations. For example, in 2014, the university lost several thousand hectares of particularly valuable land due to the annexation of the experimental farm “Dublyanske”.
On October 3, a petition to cancel the decision on reorganization appeared on the website of electronic petitions. It states that it is actually about the liquidation of a university with a 170-year history, where more than 16,000 students study, including 8 colleges in several regions of Ukraine. Neither scientific nor economic justification of the reorganization was presented, and the decision taken is considered opaque, without agreement with the team and the public.
At the time of publication, the petition has collected 3,827 signatures of the required 25,000.
