Choosing a university is one of the most important decisions for high school graduates, and it’s made even more difficult if they are forced to apply to just one faculty or department. The Association of High School Students in BiH (ASuBiH) has been implementing their initiative “I kopija vrijedi” (Copies are valid too) since 2015, in an attempt to make this process easier by enabling students to apply to universities with certified copies of documents. The Institute for Youth Development KULT supports this initiative and efforts to ensure that students can submit certified copies for enrollment at universities.
ASuBiH and the Institute signed an agreement formalizing our cooperation and the Institute will provide them with financial and advisory support in the process of implementing the initiative “I kopija vrijedi”. So far, this initiative has been adopted by five higher education institutions in BiH: University of Sarajevo, Zenica, Bihać, Tuzla and Mostar. The Institute and ASuBiH will cooperate on advocating for changes in enrollment policies at the University “Džemal Bijedić” in Mostar and universities in Banja Luka and Istočno Sarajevo.
“Over 90% of high school students in 55 communities across BiH strongly support this initiative”, said Azra Sorguč, Chairwoman of ASuBiH, adding that both students and universities are satisfied with this initiative, which has so far been adopted by five universities. Azra says that universities are happy with the initiative because high school graduates are more likely to apply and have more choices, which means more enrolled students for some universities. On the other hand, this initiative means that students can apply to a variety of faculties, which in turn means less stress due to failed applications and lower costs of applying during the second round of enrollments.
ASuBiH sees room for improvement in the initiative and together with universities they identified the lack of an online enrollment system as an obstacle. Having one online system would provide for a unified approach to creating final rankings and would eliminate some of the stress associated with choosing where to enroll.
The goal is to make sure that all public universities in BiH adopt this initiative, so all high school graduates would have equal opportunities to apply to the faculty of their choice.
This initiative was supported with funds provided by the Embassy of the Kingdom of Sweden in BiH.
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