Students of three faculties ready to protest if Faculty of Medicine suspends classes

SARAJEVO, (Patria) - The Association of Students of the Faculty of Dentistry – ASSF "Studentist" has sent an appeal for help in realizing the basic right – the right to education, after it was announced yesterday from the Faculty of Medicine in Sarajevo that they are demanding payment of obligations for the conducted classes in the academic year 2018/2019 and the signing of contracts for the next two academic years, or there will be no classes for Dentistry students. 

The appeal was submitted by students of the Faculty of Health Studies, the Faculty of Pharmacy, and the Faculty of Dentistry with clinics in Sarajevo, with the support, as they stated, of deans Arzija Pašalić and Muhamed Ajanović. Peaceful protests have even been announced on the official FB page of ASSF "Studentist" if classes are suspended. 

Students state that they have also obtained information that discrimination of students of these three faculties is occurring at the request of KCUS.

"On 13.5.2020, the Federal Minister of Health Vjekoslav Mandić issues a decision in which he states and proposes that the University Clinical Center Sarajevo, in its capacity as a university hospital, be a teaching base for students of the Faculty of Medicine, Faculty of Dentistry, Faculty of Pharmacy, and Faculty of Health Studies, i.e., faculties of the Medical group.

In the period from 13.5 to 1.9.2020, the Federal Minister's office received a request to amend the decision from the Clinical Center in Sarajevo, where instead of the initially proposed above, the proposal is changed so that KCUS becomes only a teaching base for students of the Faculty of Medicine, excluding students of other faculties of the medical group.

On 1.9.2020, Minister Vjekoslav Mandić issues a decision with an amendment to the proposal, in which he exclusively states as a proposal that the University Clinical Center Sarajevo is a teaching base for students of the Faculty of Medicine.

All of the above is done with the aim of discriminating against students of the faculties of the Medical group, except for students of the Faculty of Medicine, and thereby violating the law," state the students.

According to the Law on Higher Education of Sarajevo Canton, Article 151 stipulates that the University of Sarajevo Clinical Center is a teaching base for all organizational units belonging to the group of medical sciences. 

"In accordance with the law, the Federal Minister of Health does not have the right to adopt a proposal to exclude students of the faculties of the Medical group, except for students of the Faculty of Medicine, from the teaching process, by directly and exclusively stating in the proposal that the University of Sarajevo Clinical Center is a teaching base only for the Faculty of Medicine.

The University of Sarajevo Clinical Center, in its capacity as a university hospital and teaching base for students of the medical group, does not have the right to request amendments to the proposal in the decision in such a perfidious way that students of the faculties of the Medical group, except for students of the Faculty of Medicine, are excluded from the teaching base, and thus from the teaching process," is the students' position.

The Statute of the University of Sarajevo, in Article 34, also specifies that the "Clinical Center in Sarajevo is the primary clinical teaching base for the faculties of the Medical Sciences Group of the University."