Stick Disguised As Carrot

On why the state needs compulsory work-off for fee-paying students.

Talks about introducing work-off for graduates of paid education have been going on since September 2023, when the Ministry of Education first announced the idea after Lukashenka's criticism. At the same time it was proposed to increase the length of time of work-off for students of budgetary form, writes Salidarnasts.

No concrete steps in this direction have not yet been taken, but officials regularly remind about the possible innovation.

Recently, the head of the main department of vocational education of the Ministry of Education and Science Siarhei Pishchou has again publicly commented on this topic. He argues the possible introducing of compulsory work-off for paying students is a good social guarantee for young specialists.

Besides, according to Pishchou, all students should have the right to get the first job, as they master the same study programme regardless of the form of education.

These arguments sound unconvincing. Siarhei Pishchou himself says that fee-paying students can already use the right of job assignment, and that about 1000 graduates a year do so. Accordingly, those students who need help in finding their first job are not deprived of such an opportunity.

An important difference is that in the case of budgetary students this measure is compulsory, while with fee-paying students it is voluntary.

The assertion that the job assignment is a kind of social guarantee provided by the state is groundless if we look at the labour conditions in which young specialists are often forced to work off (we will talk about this in detail in the next article on the topic of work-off).

So what is the real reason for the possible imposing of compulsory work-offs for fee-paying students?

The real reason may lie in the shortage of personnel in the public sector of the economy, where, as a rule, young specialists are assigned.

In a conversation with a former employee of one of the capital's universities, engaged in training specialists in pedagogical specialities, we learnt the details of how the assignment of budgetary students takes place. She notes that in recent years the staff shortage has been particularly acute in the field of school education.

Teachers of maths and computer science were the most in demand. Preschool teachers are in second place. The third place is occupied by primary school teachers. There is also a noticeable shortage of physics, biology and chemistry teachers.

The process of assignment itself is as follows: the university receives applications from the education departments of the regions and the capital for the required number of young specialists and, in turn, sends graduates to these places. However, in recent years, when our interlocutor was still in her position, the university could cover only 30-40 per cent of applications in Minsk and Minsk region.

Another indicator of the shortage of teachers is that more and more senior students start working in schools already during their studies. For example, about 2/3 of students at the Faculty of Primary Education are already working at the 4th year of study. At the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics, it is about half of all fourth-year students.

It is worth noting that many of them do not have part-time employment, but work full-time or even time and a half, although it is difficult to imagine this when studying full-time. Nevertheless, school educational institutions at least somehow close the staffing gaps in this way.

The situation is unlikely to change in the next few years, given the growing understaffing even in some of the top universities in Belarus. The Ministry of Education also sees this negative trend, and it should be assumed that the talk about the introducing of compulsory work-offs for fee-paying students is an attempt of an administrative response to the shortage of staff (although officials do not recognise this and speak about work-offs only as additional social guarantees for graduates).

Belarus is a rare example of countries where there are compulsory work-offs for university graduates. In this matter our country is on a par with Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam and China.

Yes, the job assignment of young specialists exists in some other countries, but only for certain specialities of the public sector of the economy or those where the training is actually a practical part of the studies, for example, for doctors. In Belarus, however, graduates of all specialities of budgetary education are obliged to work-off at the prescribed workplace, and soon this fate may await the fee-payers as well.

According to independent trade unions, compulsory work-off is nothing but a forced form of labour. Convention 29 of the International Labour Organisation states that ‘forced or compulsory’ labour means any work or service which is imposed on a person under the menace of any penalty and for which that person has not offered himself voluntarily. Belarus is among the 181 countries that have ratified the Convention. It did so back in 1956....

Therefore, the current attempt to sell a duty under the guise of a privilege is a stick disguised as a carrot, and is both illegal and unfair.

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