Medicine students to start hunger strike

TIRANA, Dec. 13 – A group of medicine faculty students on Monday said they would start a hunger strike to protest against the old curricula they are forced to use and the lack of hands-on practice.
Taulant Muka, head of the students’ union, said more students would join the strike during the week, saying they would not hamper some of them to take part in exams.
They will hold the strike inside the building of the medicine faculty.
They said they did not trust the dean and his staff to resolve their requests. They added there was a lot of pressure on them to stop their protest.
But the students said they were convinced to hold the strike in order to resolve once and for all the problems accompanying their studies.
Students say that the books they learn from have been used since the 1970s and belong to the Russian school which is not practiced in the country any more. They also complained that they are not trained in practice at all and that many of their professors miss the classes due to the double work they do privately.
They want also their dean to step down from the post.
Dean Alfred Priftanji said they had already discussed and resolved the students’ requests at a meeting they held last month and they were promised the solution would come very soon.
He said that students who are to take part in the strike will be a small group and all the others had already agreed with the deal on timing of the reforms.