Victory for students who have put up a protest tent in front of the Education Ministry.
After students Dorotea Šušak and Espi Tomičić spent five days in front of the Ministry of Science, Education and Sports, due to a delay in payment of state-sponsored scholarships for socially disadvantaged students, today they achieved their goal, reports Index.hr on June 6, 2016.
Education Minister Predrag Šustar finally agreed to all their demands. The students will dismantle their protest tent and have every right to feel proud because not only have they successfully fought for their rights, but they fought for all future generations of students.
Dorotea said she felt incredible. “I feel fantastic, we have achieved our goal. In fact, this is one of a few protests which had been launched with a specific goal and demands, and has concluded with the fulfillment of the goals. We have asked to receive a document confirming what was agreed, and the Minister gave us the document, so this is a real step forward. Next generations will be able to enjoy the rights which we fought for. We have fought for change and now we can be satisfied”, said Dorotea.
She added that, for the first time in the past five days, the Minister came this morning to their tent and later came again with the statement that he accepted all their demands. She said they asked him to include four changes in the Rules of Competition for State-Sponsored Scholarships for Socially Disadvantaged Students.
“We asked him to change the deadlines for the competition. Our second demand was that having a temporary student job cannot disqualify anyone from applying for grants, then that points required to obtain scholarships have to be reduced from 45 to 37, and that the competition must be opened for persons with international protection, which are asylum seekers studying in Croatia”, added Dorotea.
At the end, she said that there would be a consultation period for the proposed amendments to the Rules which would last until 15 July, but it was important that the Minister had already agreed to all the demands.
