The Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine does not consider the termination of full-time postgraduate admissions under a contract to be a violation of the constitutional right to education
The Ministry of Education and Science does not believe that the temporary suspension of admission to full-time postgraduate studies under a one-year contract violates the constitutional right to education. This was reported by the press service of the Ministry of Education and Culture in response to LIGA.net’s request.
“We left the opportunity for contract employees to study in correspondence and evening forms. Therefore, there is no violation of constitutional rights”, the department explained.
A temporary suspension of full-time postgraduate admissions for contract students has been introduced for one year. The Ministry of Education and Science stated that decisions on possible extension of restrictions will be made depending on the development of the situation.
Previously, the licensed volume for post-graduate contract students was determined, which indicated the number of persons that could be accepted for each educational program. The reporter asked if that was enough to weed out those seeking graduate school just to get a deferment from military service. The MES claims that the licensed amount “has been unjustifiably increased for a long time in order to support young scientists”, so it is currently several times higher than the actual number of graduate students until 2022.
We will remind: Article 53 of the Constitution of Ukraine guarantees everyone the right to education. During the work on the new law on mobilization, one of the biggest problems for the people’s deputies was the decision of whether to allow full-time post-graduate contract students a deferment from mobilization. Corresponding amendments were introduced to the committee, and as a result the adjournment was maintained. The Ministry of Education and Culture did not cancel full-time study for post-graduate contract students, but temporarily stopped recruitment for it for one year.
On June 24, the Minister of Education and Science Oksen Lisovyi, in the midst of the admissions campaign, announced changes to the rules for admission to graduate school, explaining it by the large influx of men of draft age, to whom education provides a reprieve from mobilization. The Ministry of Education and Culture explained: they informed about changes to admission already after the start of the exam, because only the day before they received data on the number of entrants of conscription age.
For this year, admission to full-time post-graduate studies for contract workers, which provided a deferment from service, is suspended. However, there are contractual part-time and evening forms that do not grant the right to postponement.
