Obligatory assignment contradicts Constitution

In Belarus, 65 civil suits have been launched on the students who didn’t take the employment they had been assigned to within the policy of obligatory assignment of high school students. Well-known human rights activist Valiantsin Stefanovich believes that the assignment policy is a soviet atavism of forcing to work at a specific place. The human rights activist cites the Belarusian Constitution that proclaims the work a right - not a duty - of a citizen.

Valiantsin Stefanovich said in an interview to Radio Svaboda that “the Constitution implies free education financed from the state budget which is being compiled of citizens’ taxes. This means that the citizens pay for the education with their taxes all their lives, which makes compensations for the state money and obligatory assignment completely illegal.”

Nevertheless, in the current situation graduate students cannot use their right to work where they want, the human rights activist is convinced.

“Earlier people used to work illegally for 2 years, and then after the assignment term was over they got an official employment. The recent changes in the legislation force graduate students to pay for themselves,” Stefanovich says and advises those who don’t want to work forcedly in the middle of nowhere to “get the second higher education, become a PhD or doctorate student or to pay for final years, because in the result it will prove cheaper than to pay back the cost of the “free” education.”