CHARGES AND FEES PAYABLE BY THE STUDENTS AND THE AVAILABLE FORMS OF SUPPORT
The number of cases concerning financial questions connected to student status comprised a significantly smaller share of the total number of cases related to higher education than in the previous years. The reason for the change, presumably, is that there were no great changes in the regulation of financing affecting students in higher education in the reporting period compared to the previous years. Thus no new issues of interpretation and application of legislation arose in connection with them. This conclusion is supported by the fact that the submissions asked for information about questions already answered in the previous years almost without exception, i.e. the Office did not have to face a new problem in this area in 2003, it was sufficient to inform the petitioners and higher education institutions about the official positions of the Office established previously.
State financed training programmes
The submissions about the conditions of the right to state financed training are typical every year. It is not by chance, since it is an extremely important criterion in deciding whether one should pursue his/her studies at a higher education institution, and if yes, what form of education he/she should participate in.
| A petitioner requested urgent information about the connection between the first degree and state financing, two days prior to the final deadline of posting the application form for admission to higher education. The interest of the petitioner was justified by the fact that the degree programmes which he intended to apply to existed only as correspondence training and against tuition fee payment. Since he works, only part-time, correspondence or distance learning training forms could be considered in his case. Pursuant to the relevant legal regulation, without doubt, not only those selecting full-time, but also part-time and correspondence training form may participate in training financed by the state, but only if they are admitted to the place financed by the state. Therefore the Office had to inform the petitioner that he could not participate in training financed by the state if he is not admitted to such a programme, this would be possible only if the higher education institution provided state financed training at the given degree programme and training form. However no higher education institution was required to do so. If the higher education institution starts part-time, correspondence or distance learning only as fee-based tuition programme, it is implied that application can be made only for fee-based tuition programme. (K-OJOG-165/2003.)
|
The question arises from time to time what happens to the place finance by the state in the case that the student intends to pursue his/her higher education studies at another degree programme or another institute.
| After repeating a semester and an uncompleted semester, a second-year medical student would have liked to transfer to the nurse degree programme provided at another faculty of the university. She asked how long the state would continue financing her studies after the total of four started semesters. She could find no information in connection with this in the regulations of the university and nobody could tell her anything for sure at the Dean's Office either. Following the sample of the information provided in similar cases, the Office informed the petitioner that the first initial training can be financed by the state in higher education. If the petitioner terminates her student status at the current university and takes an entrance examination to another higher education institution, she utilises the legal instrument called 'changing between degree programmes'. According to the Higher Education Act not only that training is construed as first initial training which the student started first, but also the one to which the student enrols as a result of the new admission procedure with the change of degree programme, double degree programme or institution after the first enrolment; however, only in the period decreased with the financed period of studies conducted in the previous, first initial training of the training period determined in the training requirement of the degree programme taken with the change of the degree programme or institution. Therefore if the petitioner discontinues her current studies and takes an entrance examination for education financed by the state, her training at the new institute will be financed by the state for the period calculated according to this rule. Thus, the already financed four semesters had to be deducted from the training period of the nurse degree programme and she can receive state financed training for the remaining period, after the expiration of the latter, however, she has to pay tuition fee. (K-OJOG-136/2003.)
|
Content
|
