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On June 13th the youth tradeunion group "Studentskaya Rada/Students Council" held the first of its kind conference "Students' Rights and Human Rights defending among Students, Present-Day Students".
On Sunday morning more than 30 students, representatives of various youth organizations and civil activists gathered at the International Educational Center to discuss what the Students' Rights are, Why do students need them, Who the Present-Day Student is and What his role and place in the Belorussian society is. Among the participants of the conference was Lada Burdatcheva, co-coordinator of the International Network on Students' rights.
It was one of the first steps toward the pronouncement of the issues that worry the most active part of the Belorussian students, namely: Low quality of education, lack of independent students' organization and clear legal mechnism for protecting students' rights, as well as the problem of low level of civil engagement of students and non-alignment of Belarus to the Bologna Process.
To understand the situation better, the participants learned several reports that reveal the problem aspects of the theme of Students' Rights. "If you talk about the main difficulties in the student area, at first, it is the unwillingness of students to be interested in something and engage in something. It is interesting to get money, but don’t do anything for that. Secondly, students are afraid to operate in the civil sphere. Because everyone assumes that he is completely alone and nobody will support him. And thirdly, it is worth to note that students are limited to only themselves - their problems, their interests, which often receives no support from even the other students", - the report by Lada Burdatcheva telled.

According to Alexandra Dickan, the organizer of the conference, the main result of the event was the development of resolution in which, among other items, participants approved the concept of Students' Rights, suggested to implement in practice the possibility of early graduation, pointed to the need to intensify international academic experience exchange among students on the rights of students and students self-government, as well as stated the importance of introducing a proportional system of knowledge assessment when applying for some specialties (particularly creative) by combining the centralized tests with other forms of knowledge testing, such as exams or creative tasks in a profile subject.
The conference was finished by adoption of the resolution, which included some drafts of thematic groups, as well as suggestions received during its discussion.

By Lada Burdatcheva,

event member