STA, 7 September - Mladi Plus, a union representing students, pupils and the jobless under 35, has accused the Ljubljana and Maribor medical faculties of turning down all non-EU citizens who wanted to get enrolled with a vague explanation, alleging "discrimination based on nationality". The STA is awaiting the medical schools to respond to the allegation.
Mladi Plus, or Youth Plus, said on Tuesday that some places at Slovenian faculties are annually reserved for ethnic Slovenians without citizenship and foreign students.
It said the non-EU candidates had been promised at open days that the Ljubljana and Maribor universities would accept all of them if they met entry requirements.
But at the end of August, when it was already too late to apply to study at other faculties, they were told their applications would not be even considered.
The explanation was that all the places had been reserved for Slovenians without Slovenian citizenship, which the trade union said had never happened before.
The union finds problematic the fact the candidates, who had turned to it for help, had received the news when it was too late to apply at other faculties.
The number of rejected candidates is 123, of whom 101 at the Ljubljana faculty, said Youth Plus, which is affiliated with the country's largest trade union association, ZSSS.
It also said the chancellors and deans do not respond to invitations for a meeting with the candidates, while university services said the rejected candidates had the right to appeal.
The trade union said that foreign students represent almost 10% of all students studying in Slovenia, of whom more than half come from the Western Balkans.
