STUDENTS FROM the three private universities abandoned the lecture halls yesterday for an hour to protest against increased tuition fees. The students called on Education Minister Andreas Demetriou to submit before parliament a bill amending the 2005 law on private academic institutions, giving the state greater control on tuition fees.
Students affiliated to all parties held their main demonstration outside Frederick University, shouting slogans like: “Put the brakes on profiteering” and “Education is not a jar of jam you can sell, it is a right”.
Protoporia, a student body linked to opposition party DISY, also held a protest outside the Education Ministry, demanding that the minister, who they described as “dangerous” to education, table an amendment bill as soon as possible. Proodeftiki, affiliated to ruling party AKEL, said the 2005 law entitles university owners “to continuously erect barriers to education”.
Other student bodies bemoaned the fact that protesters were following party lines on the issue, making the whole protest a waste of time for the 15,000 students enrolled at private universities, instead of uniting as one under a common struggle.
House Education Committee Chairman Nicos Tornaritis yesterday accused the minister of “trying to mislead and confuse the public by talking about private universities becoming not-for-profit organisations”.
He said the minister was aware that two opinions from the Attorney-general’s office had tied parliament’s hands in 2005 regarding a bill on not-for-profit institutions of higher education as they were deemed unconstitutional. He further argued that not-for-profit does not mean lower tuition fees, accusing AKEL and the minister of misinforming the public on this issue.
Tornaritis said fees in the UK were cheaper for EU citizens because the British government provided subsidies.
The minister yesterday was quick to rule out the idea of subsidising student fees. He said there were other ideas which the ministry had prepared and would put before the interested parties, adding that Tornaridies was adopting “the wrong approach”.
AKEL party official responsible for education Georgios Loucaides argued that universities were effectively blackmailing students by hiking fees because students could either pay the increase or abandon university.
Last week, Demetriou agreed that that the 2005 law which laid the groundwork for private universities “has a lot of gaps, which the Ministry is attempting to plug”.
He acknowledged that the Ministry’s efforts were constrained by the EU’s free market legislation on interfering in the pricing strategy of private businesses.
The Attorney General’s Office is currently considering an amending law drafted by the Ministry, which would oblige the owners of private universities to declare the level of tuition fees to the Ministry six months before the start of each academic year, together with each projected increase over the following four years.
EDEK deputy Georgios Varnavas also criticised the minister for referring to the need for not-for-profit institutions, arguing that he knew the reason it was not passed in parliament in 2005 was because it was unconstitutional. He called on the minister to stop trying to blame political parties and focus instead on tabling the new amendment bill on private academic institutions, which parliament has been waiting for since September 2008. Varnavas also called on private universities to limit their increases to those they can justify.
