Ukraine’s Education and Science Ministry has said that the situation with the Bohomolets National Medical University is unacceptable and demands that the leadership of the university resume the educational process.
“On February 26, the Ukrainian Education and Science Ministry received information that by administrative means – through the closing of buildings – students of the Bohomolets National Medical University were deprived of the opportunity to continue their education. The Education and Science Ministry considers unacceptable the disruption of the educational process that is taking place by administrative means at the Bohomolets National Medical University, which is in the sphere of management of the Health Ministry,” the ministry’s press service reported on February 26.
Students reported that on Feb.26, “we saw closed buildings with chains on the doors and confused teachers.” As a result, even those students who wanted to study could not get the necessary services from the institution. The students also stated that “the strike itself was declared without taking into account the opinion of both students and the staff of employees.”
The Education and Science Ministry stressed that conditions for a proper educational process should be created for students who want to study.
“Students cannot and should not suffer from any conflicts, in particular, managerial ones,” reads the report.
The ministry also demanded that the university leadership fulfill their duties and resume the educational process, creating the conditions for teaching students who want to be taught.
Earlier, a report on the Facebook page of the Bohomolets National Medical University said that the students and faculty of the Bohomolets National Medical University (NMU) went on strike from February 26 “due to unprecedented rude and illegal interference by the administration of the Ukrainian Health Ministry in the independence and self-governance of the NMU.”
The students and faculty demanded that Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko intervene in the situation and that the Verkhovna Rada speaker and the prime minister “immediately create a commission to investigate the abuse by the administration of the Health Ministry” and “suspend Health Minister Ulana Suprun and her deputies from their posts for the period of this investigation.”
