What Prevents International Students from Getting Education in Russia

The session was guided by Nadezhda Shaidenko, Vice-President of the Committee. Veniamin Kaganov, Deputy Minister of Education and Science of the Russian Federation and Dmitry Guzhelya, Deputy Director of Rossotrudnichestvo, delivered their reports. Vladimir Kochin, Executive Director of the Russkiy Mir Foundation, took part in the discussion of educational issues foreign students had.

After listening to the reports, the State Duma deputies, representatives of the RF MFA and FMS, scientists, lectures and the representatives of non-governmental organizations present at the meeting sorted out several groups of issues referring to the delivery of higher education to international students that require discussion and introduction of amendments to the legal framework.

In the first place, there is a problem of planning as there is no single administrative document approved by the Russian government at the country level that fixes top-priority goals, forms and mechanisms of international cooperation in the sphere of education, which makes the carrying out activity in the field impossible.

There are such issues as a poor level of knowledge international students entering Russian higher educational institutions show, lack of information on Russian universities and colleges, a long time required to have one’s Russian specialist diploma recognized, low comfort level at hostels and bad health care access for international students. Special consideration was given to visa issues foreign students had and a complicated registration procedure they experienced in Russia as well as a great number of restrictions on working practice and temporary employment for international students.

The participants of the round table session made a set of their recommendations to be addressed to the Government of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Education and Science of the RF, RF FMS, Rosobrnadzor as well as to Russian higher educational institutions dealing with teaching international students.