Former education minister, Christian-Democrat (KDH) deputy Martin Fronc, slammed the draft amendment to the law on universities that is now on the agenda in parliament. He finds it unjust, as it categorizes students into two groups: paying and non-paying scholars. Mr. Fronc is convinced that enacting fees for external students is discriminatory against young people who study and work at the same time.
Mr. Fronc said that it is embarrassing when the minister is not able to calculate the sum of fees the students should have to pay. Mr. Fronc asked his successor, Jan Mikolaj, where the expert analyses and an impact study were to the draft amendment. Mr. Fronc slammed the minister for his plan to introduce "wild fees" without any previous discussion. According to Mr. Fronc, none of the proposed provisions in the law will improve conditions of study.
Also, the opposition Slovak Democratic and Christian Union-Democratic Party (SDKU-DS) is against, as it says, the unsystematic and asocial introduction of the amendment. The SDKU-DS will not support the bill. If the bill makes it to the second reading in parliament the party will try to make it more acceptable by amending proposals, said SDKU-DS leader Mikulas Dzurinda. The SDKU-DS leader remarked that Minister Mikolaj sees that university education will not function without student financial participation. However, because he is a member of this government, he stopped halfway and is presenting a counterproductive solution. Mr. Dzurinda underscored on this occasion that the system of fees his government proposed was more equitable and offered social benefits to poorer students. The SDKU-DS is also against turning rector senates into mere debate clubs without powers. It is also against the duty of private schools to form academic senates.
Opposition deputy Ludmila Muskova rushed to condemn Mr. Fronc for his transition from a politician who while in office was striving to introduce tuition fees for university studies, to an opposition politician who criticizes the measure. Ms. Muskova thinks that it would be more appropriate if somebody other than the ex-minister criticized the amendment. During his term, Mr. Fronc failed three times to push forward a bill introducing tuition fees for university studies.
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