Valruzia

[Aethan]

Nowik announces new Education Law, including free university tuition

Move criticised by the right by supported by majority of population, polls say

October 5641

Nowik (first from the left) in a meeting with teachers at a Uniatow school

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With the beginning of a new scholar year, Chancellor Nowik has launched a landmark National Education Transformation Act, a sweeping comprehensive reform that not only guarantees tuition-free universities but also overhauls schooling from kindergarten to high school. The move fulfills a key promise of the agreement between the KPW and Sovereign Valruzia, aiming at building a "robust public system designed to strengthen equal opportunities and national sovereignty".

Major keypoints of this Act include the elimination of tuition fees at all state-funded university institutions while at the same time increasing the requirements for private universities to be founded in Valruzian soil and the creation of a nationwide network of state-run preschool centers to ensure "family conciliation" and to "fight inequality from the cradle". The government has also negotiated with school and high school teachers a 15% salary increase over three years, and a 20% in the case of university professors who undergo research projects while working at the same time.

Although the Act still leaves room for some private schools, the government will make mandatory to follow at least 65% of the new National Curriculum, which will be made after meetings with education authorities and experts from the respective fields, including scientists, historians, philosophers and others, but will leave religion out of the curriculum. At the same time, no new private schools will be allow to open closer than 1km from the nearest public school. 

Following with the special attention Nowik has been given to rural Valruzia in latter times - firstly with the AgroSo initiative - the Nowik government has also announced their intention to collaborate in "Rural education expansion", overseeing a project to open 500 new public schools across the whole Valruzian territory in the more rural regions, targeting the "forgotten Valruzia".

Nowik, speaking at a Uniatow school, his hometown, framed the reform as a defence against foreign influence:

"We want and need critical thinkers and skilled workers, because an educated society is more difficult to corrupt and bribe"

Reactions to the announcement of this new Nowik initiative have been mixed but mostly positive, with education unions calling it "the biggest victory since democratization". On the other side, National Renewal has dismissed it as "populism that will scare away investment" and accusing Nowik of being "fiscally irresponsible", wondering where the money would come from for all the "free projects", while the Valruzian Alliance has called it "a blatant attempt at shaping our youth in Nowik's own ideology, including his own concept of gender ideology". However, public opinion remains highly in favor of the proposal, with 72% backing free universities, although the new curriculum idea is more divisive (35% oppose).

"Education is not and should not be a privilege; it is a fundamental right"

declared Nowik during a speech at Nowogard's Technical University.

"This law ensures that no talented mind is left behind simply because they lack proper resources"

According to the government, the program will also create new mechanisms to motivate young generations to go and work in the countryside, by creating new university degrees tarteged for that aim.

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Chancellor Nowik celebrates his union

Just one week before the announcement of the Act, Chancellor Nowik was living another dream, as he officially married his longtime partner, engineer and social personality Mateusz Gawryś, with whom he reconciled after an apparent breakup three years ago.

Among the guests we could see Empress Mary I Ananto of Kalistan and his recently wed husband, Martin Collins-Ananto, a wedding both the Chancellor and his partner attended just a month ago and which highlights the close relationship between both mandataries, as the four of them shared long conversations and jokes during the celebrations afterwards. Other special guests included Valruzian actors Rafał Slazak, Marcel Kopański and Aleksandra Turczyn, as well as former President of Valruzia Karolina Pietrzyk - who is ongoing a breast cancer treatment but wished to be present.