Students’ union HOOK has turned to the European Commission over Hungary’s new higher education laws, chairman David Nagy told a gathering of demonstrating students in Budapest on Wednesday evening.
Nagy said that a clause in the new laws requiring students who receive state financing for their courses to stay in the country for some years for work is “no solution to the problem of brain drain”.
He told a group of about 200 gathered in central Deak ter that the solution would be creating work conditions and wages on par with the rest of Europe and restoring the prestige of knowledge and getting a degree.
He said students demand that the government reverse recent drastic cuts in certain areas of study based on professional considerations. He mentioned economics and law as two areas which unjustly took the brunt of the cuts.
He cited Hungary’s basic rights ombudsman as saying recently that applicants’ rights were seriously violated over the past few months and pushing the deadline for applications forward did not help this.
Nagy said today’s demonstration was one of a series of actions planned in Budapest and university towns in the country.
Attending the demonstration, Laszlo Mendrey, chairman of the Democratic Trade Union of Teachers (PDSZ), told MTI that teachers and students were “in the same boat” regarding the higher ed laws, and that it was not going in the right direction. He said PDSZ was especially critical of the cuts in state-funded places for courses to start in September 2012.
The student unionists plan to hold a vigil from 11pm in the tents erected on the square.
Won’t this just make the brain drain start earlier – encouraging Hungarians to get their education abroad? Not that there isn’t pretty good motivation to do that already…
Students’ union HOOK has turned to the European Commission
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A bunch of traitors obviously, if applying Fidesz rhetoric in this area also