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Exemption from tuition fee payment
In 2003 the majority of questions which arose in this area were related to the exemption from the tuition fee payment of people receiving pregnancy and confinement benefit, maternity benefit, children's education benefit or maternity grant. A typical question is who are entitled to 'the opportunity of free education to which pregnant women and women with very young children are entitled'. The Office informed the petitioner that students who receive the above enlisted social benefits on the first day of the specific semester do not have to pay tuition fee, provided that they attend initial training, supplementary initial training, specialised continuing education or accredited formal tertiary level vocational training.
Similarly to the previous year the Office received a complaint in which a student entitled to the exemption objected to the price payable obligatorily for the textbook package to be purchased as a disguised tuition fee payment obligation.
A forth-year student wrote that until then there had been no problems with utilising the exemption from tuition fee payment, however from 2003 the college prescribed the payment of the price of the textbook package to be purchased obligatorily. According to the legal regulations the payment obligation of students participating in tuition-fee programmes in state higher education institution, based on their student status, means that the students are obliged to pay the tuition fee and charges determined in the regulation of the institution to the higher education institution. However, no further payment obligation can be specified for these students on the basis of their student status. According to the official stand of the Office established previously, the price of the syllabus belongs to the notion of tuition fee payment, which follows from Section g) of Article 124/E of the Higher Education Act. According to the explanatory provision tuition fee payment includes all costs whose extent is determined by the higher education institution, is connected with training, and is imposed on the participants of training not financed by the state. The price of syllabus to be purchased obligatorily is a cost connected with training, since the course material package includes the curriculum to be mastered during the training or a part thereof, and its purchase is obligatory, it is imposed on all the students participating in the specific training, and their extent was determined by the higher education institution. Not including it in the sum of tuition fee payment violates the law. Students who are exempt from tuition fee payment based on a legal regulation do not have to pay these costs either.
The petitioner herself sent the official stand of the Office to the head of the institution, who replied directly to the Office. In his letter the head of the institution outlined his opinion that the sale of the textbook package is the sale of goods, thus it is not a part of the training; however, only those students can meet the requirements of the curriculum who purchase the textbook package. Thus the college does not burden the students, what is more it definitely assists them by providing them with the package at the time of registration, thus they do not have to obtain the lecture notes themselves. However, the handing over of the textbooks for free would result in a cost increase for the college. The Office informed the head of the institute that the abolition of the purchase obligation, not the handing over of the textbooks for free, can provide a solution for avoiding the infringement of rights. (K-OJOG-333/2003.)
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A petitioner - who intended to utilise this benefit as a student of a higher education institute maintained by the church, not the state - complained about the unconstitutionality of the legal regulation of the same exemption from tuition fee.
The petitioner said that the government decree providing the benefit disadvantageously discriminates students who intend to study in institutions maintained by a church. According to the petitioner the regulation violates the Constitution, since students who would like to enforce their religious belief in the course of their higher education training among the framework in accordance with this are faced with a discrimination which disables the enforcement of their fundamental freedom. In its reply the Office explained that according to its official stand the regulation of the government decree does not cause the violation of the constitutional requirement of prohibition of discrimination. Exemption from tuition fee payment is not a civic right, in this case the Government provides a benefit for the subject sphere determined. According to the practice of the Constitutional Court, the state (and thus the Government as well) has great liberty of consideration in terms of selecting the beneficiaries in the case of providing benefits. The prohibition of disadvantageous discrimination is violated if the selection is arbitrary and it does not have a rational reason related to its subject. In this case it is not arbitrary, since the basis of the discrimination is the rational consideration that the state provides this opportunity in the institutions operated under its own maintenance, in other words the institutions financed by it.
Similarly to the replies of the Office written to these types of comments the attention of the petitioner was called in this case as well to the fact that if despite all of these she still thinks that the above regulation is unconstitutional, she has an opportunity to make a proposal at the Constitutional Court for determining the unconstitutionality of the legal regulation. (K-OJOG-228/2003.)
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Lack of information may explain submissions in which a grievance for not receiving exemption from the obligation to pay tuition is made by people who are not entitled to this benefit at all on the basis of the legal regulations.
A mother receiving maternity benefit thought that people in situation similar to hers could study free of charge. She would have liked to apply for a course, yet she was rejected everywhere, since she would have liked to receive free training. In her submission she asked whether there is a list about companies that undertake education with such conditions. The Office informed the petitioner that the benefit could only affect persons having student status, not the participants in various training courses organised by companies. (K-OJOG-14/2003.)
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Benefits and Allowances
In the subject of benefits and allowances due to students, the Office considers it justified to review only one case this year.
One petitioner said that an income certificate of 2002, instead of the one of 2003, was requested from him for claiming the social benefit, and this represented a disadvantage for him. Namely in January 2003 there was an unfavourable change in the financial situation of his family, as a result of which he could have claimed the benefit with a higher chance. However the Office found that the practice claimed to be injurious did not violate the law, since the specific requirement had a rational and concrete reason. 2002 was the last year when the entire annual income was stated in a controllable manner and this provision set an identical requirement for everyone, thus it did not represent negative discrimination among the applicants for social benefit. (K-OJOG-438/2003.)
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