Facing exorbitant tuition charges, deteriorating amenities and subpar meals, college students in universities all through Serbia are turning to social media platforms and resorting to a black market meal commerce to combat again towards circumstances that some liken to a “horror movie.”
For Slobodan Todosijevic, a civil engineering scholar in Belgrade, the declining high quality of companies supplied by universities is all of the extra regarding as prices proceed to rise.
Last yr, charges in his program jumped from 108,000 dinars to 130,000 per yr ($1,000 to $1,200) – a substantial sum within the Balkan nation the place the median month-to-month wage is simply 73,700 dinars.
At Serbian universities, tuition charges don’t cowl textbooks or housing prices, and a few college students are additionally pressured to pay a further payment out of pocket to sit down for exams.
“The windows are in such a terrible state that when the wind blows a bit stronger, you can’t hear the lecturer. The facilities resemble a setting of a horror movie,” Todosijevic instructed Agence France-Presse (AFP).
“I think the tuition fee increase is unjustified, especially considering the studying conditions,” he mentioned, including that almost all textbooks obtainable to college students have been many years outdated.
In the final month alone, tuition charges have been hiked at greater than a dozen totally different applications at universities throughout Serbia, in accordance with public information.
Like international locations throughout the globe, Serbia has been slammed by rising inflation. Prices averaged 12% greater in 2023 in contrast with the earlier yr.
With little to no earnings, college students are feeling the squeeze.
“I don’t see any significant improvements at any level. I don’t know on what basis tuition fees were increased,” mentioned Dorotea Antic, a member of the scholar group STAV on the University of Novi Sad in northern Serbia.
Skipping meals
Earlier this yr, STAV carried out a survey calling consideration to the college’s lackluster cafeteria system.
Beset by substandard meals and a restricted variety of amenities, the system would not have sufficient capability to serve the present scholar physique.
Of the 1,356 college students surveyed, 81% mentioned that they had skipped meals resulting from overcrowding.
In a metropolis with an estimated 50,000 college students, greater than 12,000 are eligible to eat on the college’s cafeterias, but just one facility is operational.
“We first published the survey results on social media and then printed posters and put them up around the campus where students who eat in the cafeteria pass by, so that as many people as possible could see it,” Antic instructed AFP.
The criticism and research revealed by STAV haven’t been warmly obtained by all.
“When we put up the posters, there was a big commotion. There is even a video where an activist from the ruling party came to tear down our posters and insult us,” Antic added.
The Student Centre Novi Sad – an arm of the college charged with overseeing scholar welfare – additionally panned the survey.
The group “rejects, as a mere fabrication and falsehood, the results of the alleged research on student dissatisfaction with the quality of food and hygiene in the student cafeteria, which was made public by a certain organization called STAV,” the middle mentioned in an announcement.
To protest, college students have additionally taken to social media, utilizing TikTookay to explain in comedic element the poor high quality of the meals served at college cafeterias.
In the quick clips, Serbian college students pattern the day’s fare and price the meals, with most receiving very low scores.
Comments on the movies vary from outright disgust to ridicule of the scholars anticipating higher-quality meals for low costs.
“I decided to start recording myself because I was following trends on TikTok and thought it would be interesting,” mentioned Teodora Slavkovic, whose meals evaluate clips have obtained over 20,000 views.
Fatigue
A black market on social media the place college students purchase one another’s scholar playing cards to pay much less for meals has additionally flourished as a result of decrease costs for college students on government-backed scholarships.
To add to their woes, rents in Serbia’s two main cities, Belgrade and Novi Sad, have turn into more and more unaffordable for college students after an inflow of Russian immigrants to the Balkan nation following the invasion of Ukraine.
Emilija Milenkovic, a member of the scholar group Borba, mentioned younger folks coming from different cities usually have issue discovering housing, particularly with a scarcity of house in dormitories.
“I’m living with my parents again, and I commute almost every day depending on my university commitments, which doesn’t make me happy at all,” mentioned Anja Gvozdenovic, a scholar on the University of Belgrade who moved again dwelling final yr as a result of surge in hire costs.
Gvozdenovic now commutes practically 200 kilometers (124 miles) day-after-day by practice from her mother or father’s dwelling close to Novi Sad to the capital and again.
“It’s the mental fatigue that becomes decisive,” she mentioned. “I rarely manage to truly study and gather strength and concentration.”
Source: www.dailysabah.com