The Ministry of Education, Culture and Research has ordered the Moldova State University (USM) to review its decision to allocate seats financed from its own resources. By the same order, a commission is to be created to supervise the current university admission season, IPN reports.

The Ministry said in a press release that the order comes after the Rectors’ Council complained on Wednesday that the USM’s latest decision violated general admission and fair competition rules.

In particular, the rectors complained that the USM started admission earlier by sending applicants unsolicited emails. It was also alleged that on the last day of the first stage of admission, the USM informed applicants by email that they were enrolled tuition-free, which prompted them to withdraw their applications from other universities.

The chair of the Rectors’ Council Grigore Bolestecinic, who is also rector of the Academy of Economic Studies, complained that the USM used state-allocated seats to enroll students to faculties that are most popular, such as economy and law, essentially stealing applicants from other universities. Then it used its own resources to enroll 373 students to faculties that are less demanded.

Otilia Dandara, USM deputy rector, told IPN that the government allocated 750 State Budget-covered seats to the USM, and the University used 660 of that quota, with the remainder to be offered during the second stage of admission. Otilia Dandara went on to explain that, while many universities choose to spend their own resources on things like building repairs, the USM decided this year to recruit 373 freshers with good academic standing who would have been otherwise left out because of the stiff competition for state-covered seats.