The students of the University of Sarajevo were greatly concerned by the information that the earlier decision of the cantonal authorities on non-payment of tuition fees for students who, through their efforts and achieved results, have earned the right not to pay them, is no longer valid.
Namely, in the Law on Higher Education, which was published in the Official Gazette of the Canton Sarajevo (CS) (No. 36/2022) in 2022, Article 31, paragraph 5, stated the following:
“A student who pays tuition fees and is enrolled for the first time in the current year and who has passed all exams from the current school year and according to the achieved average from the previous academic year belongs to the 20 percent of students with the highest average, is exempted from paying for the continuation of studies in that cycle”.
The Rector of the University of Sarajevo, Rifat Skrijelj, said that he told to the students to pay their obligations to the faculty and enroll, considering that there was no official and final decision by the authorities on (non)payment.
He says that it is not true that the University made any decision that is not in favor of the students, and he explained where the problem arose.
“All the decisions made by the University since September 2022 were in favor of the students and their legal right to be exempt from tuition fees, all those who achieve an average above 8.0 and we based our decisions according to the law according to which they could exercise that right. We made all our decisions on the basis of the law from 2017 because we believed that the law from 2022, which was published in September, cannot be applied retroactively to these students. So, our decisions that we made at the University were implemented by only a number of faculties,” he said, Klix.ba reports.
E.Dz.
