Leading Belarusian academics are calling for urgent reform of higher education in the country amid international concern about treatment of students and scholars who opposed the recent re-election of President Alexander Lukashenko. Lukashenko has been in power in the former Soviet state for 16 years and reportedly won 80 percent of the vote in December’s presidential election.
However, the election result has been widely questioned and there is widespread disquiet about the arrest of hundreds of demonstrators who protested against it, including many academics and students. The European Students’ Union is attempting to ramp up international pressure by persuading ten European governments to condemn the move.
Bert Vandenkendelaere, chairman of the union, warned that students are facing a repeat of the persecution previously suffered in the country in 2006. “We are disgusted to see the same situation happening all over again,” says Vandenkendelaere. “We receive reports of house searches and KGB interrogations that remind us of Stalinist times. If international pressure is not enough, we ask for additional measures to be taken, especially to protect those who voice their opinion.”
Yet meaningful reform looks unlikely following announcement of plans for a new Code of Education, which students will be forced to sign from September. In a move described by Prof. Dunayev, former rector of the European Humanities University, Lithuania, as an “administrative” approach to education, the contract will set out students’ “rights, duties and responsibilities”. He argues that what’s needed is something that guarantees “the academic rights of students and teachers”.
Others have called for reform of the way Belarusian universities teach. Viktor Martinovich, a professor in the faculty of politics at European Humanities, says the pedagogic approach had not changed for a century, with lecturers speaking and students writing. Such rote learning is completely ineffective, he adds.
(Excerpted and adapted from the Times Higher Education)