Hundreds of students remain without scholarships after the Ministry of Education changed criteria

This is after the Ministry of Education has changed the criteria of the stock exchange winners for financial support for students accepted at different universities abroad.

In the document of the call from the Ministry of Education, Science, Technology and innovation, announced by 09.06.2021, it was said that the call is intended to support the schooling of distinguished students who are accepted at various universities in the world, in specific fields of study as bachelor, master and doctorate.

And where the criteria required for application under the AugustI document have been for <x0ndidats to present evidence that they have been accepted to continue studies at the proper level of study, candidates must have evidence of excellent average success, academic work evidence, work in the community's interest at the preliminary educational level at one of the public institutions in Kosovo”

In addition to the allegations that this form of subsidy is considered by the financial state of applicants and mentions priority areas that are not indicated.

Based on this public call announced on June 9th, a total of 531 students have already applied, the assessment commission has selected only 16 of them, which are expected to be supported by 6 thousand and 500 euros.

And Tuesday with the announcement of the results, other criteria have been announced, which according to AugustI, are called the main criterion. But these criteria do not match the call and document for the application process.

So after 69 days of waiting, students only find out who received these scholarships understand other criteria that were not at the time of the call.

The top “Kritor to be taken to base for this financial support is the ranking of universities where beneficiaries are accepted according to the list of the top 150 best universities in the world in “, Higher Education”. The priority has been given to doctorate-level candidates, followed by the master's level and those who have won some kind of merit scholarship from the relevant University”, says the AugustI post.

After this change, established by the ministry led by Arberie Nagavci, numerous reactions have come.

Non-win scholarship students have reacted by saying the criteria do not range from the beginning of the call to the proclamation of winners.

Their request is to announce the list of those not accepted because they say it will turn out the assessment commission has committed violations.

They also demand that lists of their names and scores be released, and the reasons for changing scholarship applications criteria.

Robert Pajazit, who is one of the students who didn't get a scholarship, told the Infophocus Journal that he was shocked to find that the criteria for the stock exchange have changed, and that he didn't receive any AugustI emails showing him the reason not to select.

With the announcement of results, I was shocked as a applicant when I saw that the criteria for the profit of the stock exchange have completely changed, and that new criteria are nowhere to be mentioned in the AugustI call. For more I have not accepted any email from August, showing the reasons why I have not been selected for this stock exchange, Pajaziti said.

He added that as a student, he has the right to know the application criteria before the deadline is closed, rather than to be changed by announcing the results.

I as a student have the right to know before applying the criteria on which my application will be assessed, and these criteria have never been needed and should not be changed after the application closes, and the applicants have not been notified in time. That necessarily students should be informed of the criteria before the application is shut down, and criteria should not be changed by announcing results or during the selection process”, he said.

Even Fatlind Azizi, who heads the Student Organisation “Student Peace” and is also vice president in the Student Parliament, told Gazeta Infokus that they are of reconciliation with the initiative to help students, but since this competition are concerned with not presenting student results.

We agree in principle with the initiative to help the brilliant students studying world universities at the top, but we are concerned that in this competition, the results of the benefits by the AugustI were not presented. Many students have complained about the lack of proper transparency in publishing criteria from the competition, as well as in the way beneficiary students have been chosen”, Asia said.

He added that they are also willing to help institutions regarding these contests, but that they should be in transparency with all students.

“We will support whatever initiative the institution wants, which aims to ease the burden of large amounts of students studying at the top world universities, but competitions should be compiled and published through transparency, accountability and justice criteria”, he added.

And in the end, Asia said there's a huge difference between those who won a scholarship once and those who haven't won one.

Among them are those who have accepted several different scholarships, while some of the students who are not accepted in this competition have none. So there is a gap between those who have won some scholarships and those who haven't won none, despite all of them being excellent students”, said Student Organisation Chairman “Student Peace”, Fatlind Azzi.