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From the classrooms to the farms

In Belarus, the rise in tuition-free education is most unlikely to be the result of a renewed commitment to social justice on the part of the country’s authoritarian leadership. More plausibly, it reflects an effort to forcibly fill vacant positions in the public sector, which has been increasingly caused by the large emigration of working-age people from Belarus.

December 7, 2025 - Aliaksandr Papko - Articles and CommentaryIssue 6 2025Magazine

Image: Fire-fly / Shutterstock

Since 2023, state universities in Belarus have lowered admission thresholds for applicants to less popular faculties. At the same time, the authorities are seeking to expand the share of graduates obliged to spend several years in state-assigned jobs. This policy is intended to counter high rates of desertion from the public sector, where wages remain deeply uncompetitive. Yet the problem is only intensifying and now affects an ever-wider range of professions.

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