National Student Union Founded In Ostroh Academy

March 10, 2009

The conference of Ukrainian student self-government organizations leaders aimed at the elaboration of student self-governing organizations development strategy took place on 8-9 March in Ostroh Academy National University.

The students from nearly 50 educational establishments of Ukraine took part in the event, particularly from Dnipropetrovsk National University of Mines, Taras Shevcenko Luhansk National University, National University of Lvivska Politekhnika, the National Technical University of Ukraine Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, Vasyl Stefanyk Carpathian National University and others.

A new youth civil organization National Student Union was institutionalized during the event. Student representatives signed the Memorandum about collaboration and took an oath on Ostroh Bible. Such kind of a document was signed in Ukraine for the first time thus proving the intensification of student movement and the aspiration of its members for active participation in the supervision of the educational process in Ukraine.

Afterwards the first constituent assembly of the new organization took place. During the meeting the students discussed the development strategy and activities directions of the future All-Ukrainian organization and elected a postgraduate student of National University Lviv Polytechnic Anatolii Ihnatovych as its President. The student of the College of Economics of Ostroh Academy National University who is currently at the head of Student Brotherhood of the Academy was elected Vice-President for fundraising and finances.

The need for the student organization, as Mr Ihnatovych explained, was provoked by the inability of today’s student organizations to protect students’ rights either due to the lack of initiative or due to the subordination to certain state bodies.

"Our organization principally aims at the creation of an effective team that will be capable of solving any problems of the students. We would like the students self-governing organizations had the same freedom of rights as in Ostroh Academy National University, National University Lviv Polytechnic, National Technical University of Ukraine Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, etc. Our Union is always open for collaboration. If the other universities of our country manifest their will to join us, we will gladly offer them to sign the Memorandum", said Anatolii Ihnatovych.

Next step is the registration of the organization in the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine and the development of regulatory and legal documents. However, the representatives of the Union said that the latter step is almost complete.