Aaviksoo: Free Higher Education Must Come With Responsibilities Attached
During the second reading in Parliament of the higher education reform bill on January 25, Minister of Education Jaak Aaviksoo said that there can be no free higher education without certain conditions being met.
While the students union representatives were staging a protest against the bill in front of the House of Parliament, Aaviksoo once again stressed his point that the students' rights must be counterbalanced with obligations, meaning that the state and the taxpayers should not have to shoulder all the responsibility.
"By making free higher education available, we ensure that all capable and motivated young people have the right to free tuition while also having the obligation to focus on their studies and graduate on time. Our ideal is not to provide everyone with free access to a communist paradise. The students who work full-time and study part-time would have to pay a fair and feasible tuition fee, while the students who have to retake courses would have to cover the additional expenses incurred by the university," said Aaviksoo.
According to Aaviksoo, state funding of universities will grow throughout the coming reform years. "The reform will increase higher education funding by over 25 percent as well as more than double the amount of financial support provided to students, which will improve access to higher education," said the minister.
Aaviksoo stressed that the needs-based scholarships must go hand in hand with the obligation to study full-time. "At the moment, the draft legislation concerning the scholarships is waiting for approval from the government, and soon, it will be introduced in Parliament," Aaviksoo said.
Sigrid Maasen