Students are suing Moscow State University for a discount on tuition after transferring to a remote location

Lomonosov Moscow State University became the first university in Russia, whose students filed a class action lawsuit demanding to recalculate the cost of training due to transfer to distance. According to Kommersant, in their lawsuit against the university, the students put forward a number of financial claims, among them - recalculation of the cost of training for two semesters.

The exact amount was not disclosed, but the plaintiffs believe that it may be a 50% discount. In addition, they demand to cancel the payment for the hostel for those who were forced to go home after the introduction of "remote control". Earlier, students actively discussed this topic on the Web, more than 22 thousand people have already signed a similar petition on change.org.

“According to the agreement, training should be carried out in full-time form, but due to the transition to the distance format, the quality of the educational process “has decreased significantly””, - the message says.

The initiators of the proceedings demand that a recalculation be made in two semesters. The interests of students are represented in court by Florence Lenskaya. According to her, the lawsuit will be filed before the end of the week in the Nikulinsky court of Moscow. The Ministry of Education and the Government of the Russian Federation is named as a third party in the suit.

Students justify the decline in the quality of education by the fact that during the quarantine they could not attend lectures, use the library and were deprived of the possibility of personal contact with teachers, while this is provided for by the training contract. They were also deprived of full practical and laboratory work and access to research equipment. At the same time, due to the unavailability of Internet resources during distance classes, failures often occurred.

"The teaching staff was not prepared for a high degree of information communication, they did not have enough skills in online teaching methods and remote knowledge transfer, and therefore distance learning is turning into a self-education system", - quotes excerpts from the Kommersant claim.

Students note that sometimes, due to server load issues, "all pairs may be canceled".

Moscow State University and the Ministry of Education and Science have not yet commented on the situation with the filing of a lawsuit. Earlier, the head of the Ministry of Education and Science, Valery Falkov, stated that it is legitimate to raise the question of changing the cost only if the quality of educational services has "obviously" decreased.