Head of the Law Clinic of Sumy State University Rudenko Lyudmila and Deputy Secretary of the Admissions Committee of the National Institute of Law Dumchikov Mykhailo took part in the online discussion of the Report of the Ukrainian Helsinki Union on Human Rights “Ensuring the right to higher education for internally displaced persons”.
With the beginning of the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation in Ukraine, access to higher education in Ukraine has undergone significant changes. Since February 24, 2022, a large number of students of higher educational institutions in Ukraine have not been able to or experienced difficulties in obtaining services in the field of higher education. According to the estimates of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, more than 80,000 students in Ukraine experienced difficulties in obtaining higher education in Ukraine.
Access to higher education under martial law was analyzed by human rights defenders of the Ukrainian Helsinki Union for Human Rights in Cherkasy and Sumy using the example of two regions – central and border.
As part of the human rights research, an analysis of the implementation of initiatives and regulatory legal acts, which provide an opportunity to improve access to higher education for internally displaced persons, was carried out. Special attention was paid to the state of their implementation by institutions of higher education:
- Cherkasy National University named after Bohdan Khmelnytskyi;
- Sumy State University;
- Cherkasy State Technological University;
- Sumy National Agrarian University.
During the work on the report, factors were identified that complicate the work of higher education institutions, as well as gaps in work with students who are internally displaced persons.
During the presentation, they also discussed the possibilities of further development of the topic, in particular, the collection of recommendations and proposals from universities regarding problematic issues of access to higher education during the admission and post-secondary education of students with IDP status.