Higher education fourth in terms of discrimination: Party links more discriminating than familial

Higher education in the country is on the high fourth place in the ranking of areas of the society in which there is discrimination. Some students feel discriminated on a number of grounds, as victims of political, gender and ethnic discrimination. At the very least, the respondents identified discrimination based on favoritism and nepotism, and stated professors and assistants as the most frequent cause of discrimination. Such discrimination on universities towards the students influences the motivation of the young individual, who is trying to find his/her place in the world. Young researcher and author Martin Nacevski stated in the research titled “The role of young people in preventing discrimination in education” that the negative effects of discrimination are one of the reasons why young people decide to leave their homeland in search of a society that appreciates their true qualities and values.

“According to the expectations, the teaching staff is in the most direct contact with the students themselves, and students directly depend on the quality of the lectures and the assessment. This is why this category mostly abuses its position by applying different treatment to students from different backgrounds. According to the respondents, this discrimination is often manifested as a different approach in assessment, a different relationship with different students, but also unfair criteria when employing or engaging students in the teaching process,” reveal the findings of the discussion on the questionnaire by Nacevski.
Higher education is not lacking in the areas affected by political discrimination. Martina Ilievska from the Youth Educational Forum says that there are more examples where the political determination was a prerequisite for passing the exam, obtaining a higher grade or obtaining a particular scholarship or reward.
“An equally important phenomenon is gender discrimination, which occurs in all modern states. This form of discrimination can occur in many forms: when enrolled, dress code, pregnancy among female students, as well as in situations of sexual harassment. As a special form of gender discrimination Sexual harassment is directed towards the female students.

This phenomenon is very common in Macedonian universities, as confirmed by the high number of testimonies of victims of sexual harassment within the civic action “Sega Kazuvam”. Within this initiative, women and girls of different ages and background shared their experiences of sexual harassment in many situations, including in the framework of higher education. Very often, students find themselves in an unpleasant situation when the professor or assistant abuses his or her position. Certainly, sexual harassment is not always directed at the students, but they appear to be victims in most cases,” Ilievska from MOF said.
A fairly frequent phenomenon in higher education added by the youth forum is the favor of certain students or groups of students versus others, which puts the rest of the students in disadvantage. It is because of the frequent occurrence of such favoring of some of the universities, it can be interpreted as a kind of discrimination based on favoritism and nepotism.

In a multi-ethnic society such as the country one of the most common occurrences is ethnic discrimination (discrimination based on ethnicity). This phenomenon often leads to segregation in schools and in higher education.

“The Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights Nils Muižnieks warned against the danger of segregation in schools and its negative consequences several times, in which reports on the human rights situation in the Republic of Macedonia regularly mention the frequent occurrence of division in public schools. The Commissioner also notes that, while primary and secondary education is available in both Turkish and Serbian, higher education is only available in Macedonian and Albanian, creating some kind of discrimination,” Ilievska explained.

Students can influence the prevention of discrimination, according to the respondents from the questionnaire. Several forms of protection are available, which would be an effective tool for preventing it. First of all, it is informing the Dean or the Rector’s Office, or the State Education Inspectorate. But young people also have other means available to act through the Student Parliament. However, young people often do not decide to do something or are not persistent in their action, which often leads to discrimination unpunished, and the unequal treatment of students remains.

The student ombudsman of the South East European University, Enkelej Ajazi, says that the university’s office has not received any complaints based on discrimination.

“There are no bad discriminatory behaviors at our university. Students sometimes, even when they themselves make mistakes, think they are discriminated against on some grounds, but it has never been proven and therefore we cannot say that there is discrimination. There are accusations of discrimination, but they have never been proven,” Ajazi said.

The research recommends that the procedure for reporting discrimination before the competent state authorities be facilitated, as well as guaranteeing the anonymity of the applicant. As a more significant method, which will influence the reduction of discrimination, would be the formation of a separate body, whose main activity will be direct protection of students from different forms of discrimination in higher education.

Veronika Maroska-Leova