Consequences of working off assignment: Russian students want to go to Belarus

Recently, NI found out how the new rules will work, which oblige graduates of medical universities, as well as future engineers and scientists who studied in the state-funded department, to work for at least three years according to their assignment. It turned out that it is more profitable for medical students to take out a loan, enroll in a fee-paying department and gain freedom of further employment than to study on a state-funded basis with the obligation to work.

It seems that the government also understands that talented students will not want to limit themselves to obligations to the state. Officials have prepared new admission rules for the 2026/2027 academic year. Now the authorities will be able to limit the number of fee-paying places at universities. The official statement from the Cabinet of Ministers says that everything is being done for the benefit of young people:

— The absence of a ceiling on the number of places for fee-paying admission also has a negative impact on the quality of education, since the volume of fee-paying admission must correspond to the objective capabilities of universities, including a sufficient number of teachers and the material and technical equipment of the university.

It is unlikely, but let's assume that government officials know better what opportunities each university has than the management of these higher education institutions themselves. The main thing is that the authorities will thus be able to limit the number of paid educational places in specialties to which employment by assignment will apply.

The prospect of mandatory employment has caused a strong reaction from readers: in the comments to the NI article, people described the problems that young people will have to face and the negative consequences that this measure will entail, and at the same time found ways to circumvent the new rules.

Of course, there are supporters of the idea of ​​mandatory work for public sector employees. As a rule, they recall some of the successes of the USSR.

First of all, people are concerned about the size of salaries in the framework of forced employment. A logical question: will a person want to stay in this job after the minimum period of work has expired?

Russians are confident that good salaries will solve the problem of labor shortages themselves and no forced employment will be needed.

An equally pressing issue is social stability. Russians recall that during the Soviet era, social support was developed and, in addition to wages, there were other incentives to agree to work on assignment. For example, guaranteed housing, the size of which depended on the composition of the family. The more children, the larger the apartment.

Solid obligations that give nothing in return. People even see them as a threat to the country's demography: it is difficult to create a large family without housing and money to buy it.

In this situation, opponents of reforms are divided into two camps. The first are angry and see in this a conspiracy of elites destroying the higher education system.

Others are looking for options to obtain higher education without the obligation to work.

Let's clarify: of course, you won't be able to just come to a European hospital with a Belarusian diploma; you must first undergo the procedure of diploma nostrification, that is, its translation into another language, verification of curricula, and even passing exams. But in the case of a document on higher education from this country, the situation is simplified, since Belarus has joined the Lisbon Convention on the Recognition of Professions. In addition, it has agreements with China, Pakistan, Ecuador, Venezuela, Turkmenistan, and Vietnam on nostrification in a simplified manner.

Studying at the leading university, the Belarusian State Medical University, is not cheap, approximately 1.5–2 times more expensive (from 418 thousand rubles per year) than at regional Russian universities. But at the same time, studying at the BSMU will be twice cheaper than, for example, at the capital's Sechenov University.

The Russian authorities are trying to solve the personnel shortage in the country by any means possible. But the reaction of the people shows that so far their initiatives can do more harm than good.