Education Ministry satisfies some demands of protesting students

The students have been going on hunger strike for six days protesting against the Ministry's decision to close the private university. The university fourth-year student Elnur Mammadov informs that the Ministry department head Ilham Pirmammadov and Ombudsman Elmira Suleymanova visited the hunger strikers last night. Pirmammadov said the Ministry will meet the demands of the third and fourth-year students of the university. The graduates will receive their degrees, and the third-year students will be transferred to other universities.

Mammadov said despite this decision, the students will not stop the strike, APA reports.

"We want the problems of the sophomores to be solved too. We’ll go on hunger strike until all our demands are satisfied," the protesting student said reporting that nearly 60 students are protesting now.

Ilham Pirmammadov stated that the problems of all the students, who entered the university in the period between 2001 till 2003 will be solved. He also noted that the students will be transferred to three or four private universities. These universities will be announced after the final decision.

As coming to the sophomores of the university, the Ministry official said their fate will be decided by court.

"We made announcements in all televisions and newspapers in 2004 that the entrance to the Independent Azerbaijan University is illegal. Nearly 1,700 students were admitted to the university that year, and great majority of them were moved to other higher schools. There are 370 students studying there, who entered in 2004. We have investigated this case. Most of them scored very low points. So, there is no point in transferring them to another university as they will not be able to study in any other higher school," Pirmammadov said.