Belarusian Generation Y logbook

We have already informed about the initiative of the Belarusian Ministry of Education to limit access to higher education. One of the new rules was the letter of recommendation to be submitted to enter some specializations, like Journalism, International Relations, Law and Public Administration, etc. Unfortunately the alarming news has not raised enough feedback from society.The HEIs will start to conduct interviews already this spring. To get an approving recommendation to enter the abovementioned specializations, applicants will have to pass an interview in front of a big panel.

Until recently, it was a complete mystery how these interviews were going to be performed. To solve that problem, the Ministry of Education has adopted “Instructions about the the order of holding a professional-psychological interview or testing by higher educational institutions”.

The Instruction describes the deadlines for the registration of the applicants (5.03 – 31.03) and the time of the interview (5.04 – 30.04). The interviews will be obligatory for entering all forms of education: full-time and part-time studies, the budget and paid forms.

An applicant can register at the HEI. The list of the HEI will be adopted every year. Most applicants will have to travel to the capital or regional centers for those interviews which will induce addional expenditures on them.

It is possible to register only once, which means that failing one interview will not let the applicant try his or her luck in another relative field.

The interviewing panel will consist of a vice-rector or a dean, professors, lecturers, psychologists, social workers and other university staff, as well as qualified specialists of the respective fields of the economy and society.

During the interview with all those people applicants will have to show their personal and business qualities, skills and motivation to study the chosen subject.

The decision to recommend or to reject the application will be made with simple majority voting. The quorum for the decision will be two thirds of the panel. The certificate of the interview will be issued on the same day!