The event was held in connection with the ministerial funds allocated for the renovation of student residences in Poland, including those at the West Pomeranian University of Technology in Szczecin. Minister Wieczorek, together with ZUT Rector Prof. Arkadiusz Terman, the Vice-Governor of West Pomerania, Dawid Krystek, and representatives of the ZUT Student Union, Kaja Kosmenda and Krzysztof Warpachowicz, symbolically cut the ribbon and opened one of the renovated student rooms.
- The West Pomeranian University of Technology in Szczecin invests between four and six million zlotys a year (...) in renovating student hostels, and this year we can do even more thanks to the Minister, who has given us almost 15 million in the last two months,' Professor Terman summed up the investments made.
The Rector was referring, among other things, to the renovation work currently underway in Amicus, which will see more than a hundred rooms fitted with en-suite bathrooms. This represents an investment of over 10 million PLN.
The rector of ZUT emphasised that the changes to the dormitories will not only benefit the students of the region's largest technical university:
- Every student at our university (...) gets a place in a dormitory if they want it, but students from other universities in Szczecin also live with us. It's all about supporting each other, helping each other, and building up our academics.
Minister Dariusz Wieczorek said the housing needs of students had been a priority for his ministry from the start:
- This is the ministry's strategy, which we adopted right at the beginning of the term of the new parliament, the new government, (...) the programme of renovation and construction of dormitories, because we know that this is very necessary for the student community. We also know that it levels the playing field and gives the opportunity to study to all those who cannot afford to pay three or four thousand a month to rent an apartment, so this is absolutely the right direction, and we have two sources of funding potentially available (...).
The ZUT currently has almost three thousand places in student halls of residence. The seven dormitories are used by students from all the universities in Szczecin.
