Student associations to attack in court order that modifies threshold for scholarships

Several student associations announced on Wednesday that they will attack in court the order changing the threshold for awarding merit scholarships, from 8.50 to 9.50, Agerpres reports.

According to a press release sent by the Constanta Students' Association, the initiative is supported by the Bacau Students' Association (AEBc), the Valcea Students' Association (AVE), the Bucharest and Ilfov Students' Association (AEBI), the Maramures Students' Association (AEM) and the Students' Association in Timis (AETm).

"On Tuesday (...) an Order of the Ministry of Education was published in the Official Journal approving the general criteria for awarding student scholarships. The Order modifies the criteria for awarding the merit scholarships (...). Thus, the number of the beneficiaries of merit scholarships is cut down, with hundreds of thousands of students in the country being affected by this. Thus, 730,000 students in Romania are left without scholarships. If we were to mention the name of every student affected by this it would took us eight days, and this is if we read one name every second, without taking any breaks. Probably, in the next 4 years, 730,000 young people will leave Romania, disappointed by the system's failures," the same press release reads.

The students' associations accuse that the order "was published overnight," without the project being put up for public debate, in violation of the principles of decisional transparency.

"Thus, Cimpeanu proves that he has no respect for the students or for the laws of the country. We will attack the order in court, to make sure that no student will be harmed by orders given overnight illegally," says the same press release.

The National Students' Council also condemned the modification of the threshold for the merit scholarship from 8.50 to 9.50, by an order approving the general criteria for awarding scholarships published in the Official Journal.

The organization requests that the new general criteria for awarding scholarships be applied starting with the school year 2022-2023, so as to avoid a destabilization of the whole process, as well as the resumption of discussions with social dialogue partners on to the changes that need to be made to the criteria currently used.

Given the major impact of such a measure on the education system, the possibility of national protests is not ruled out if the Ministry of Education does not reverse the decision.