Rada preparing to cancel deferment for students aged 25+

The Verkhovna Rada is preparing to cancel the deferment for male students aged 25+.

The chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Education, Science and Innovation Serhii Babak (Servant of the People faction) has announced this on Telegram, the Ukrainian News agency reports.

"We are preparing for the second reading a draft law on the right to defer military service due to education. Men aged 25+ who will enter higher education institutions, professional pre-university or vocational education will not be eligible for a deferment. It is important to understand that we are not restricting the right to education, but we are revising the approach to the right to deferment. This is quite radical, but it must be done if we are talking about the security of our country," he said.

Babak noted that the effectiveness of such decisions has already been seen in the postgraduate program. Thus, according to him, before the full-scale war, more than 500 men entered it every year, in 2022 there were already about 4,000, in 2023 - 16,000, and in 2024 there were more than 90,000 applicants.

Babak noted that the rules were changed then: the contract form was removed, entrance exams were introduced, but the number of state-funded places was significantly increased to preserve the right to education for those who studied hard. As a result, the number of applicants dropped almost to the level before the full-scale invasion.

"But it was a fight against the consequences. To eliminate the cause, we need a relevant law, which, in particular, should stop using the right to education as a formal basis for avoiding the fulfillment of the constitutional duty," he emphasized.

As the Ukrainian News agency earlier reported, the Ministry of Education has changed the rules for entering postgraduate studies in 2024 due to a large influx of men of draft age who are deferred from mobilization.

In April, the Cabinet of Ministers established a test for knowledge of Ukrainian and foreign languages for third-year graduate students.

The Ministry of Education explained this step, in particular, by the desire to check the quality of knowledge of graduate students after a surge in the number of men of draft age in 2023.