Orenburg state university

Education in Eurasian Space

On the 19^th of February the International round-table conference "Prospects for Academic Cooperation in Eurasian Space" took place in Orenburg Regional Research Library named after N.K. Krupskaya.

Opening this event Venaliy Amelin, Head of OSU Research Institute for History and Ethnography of the Southern Ural outlined topics for future discussions: academic mobility, recognition of foreign education, cooperation agreement between universities of different countries, development prospects of a network university, integration of educational systems in different countries and etc.

Dmitriy Kulagin, Vice-Governor and Deputy Prime-Minister of Orenburg region emphasized that participants of round-table conference have gathered in the usual place — conversations between representatives of the Eurasian space were held in the conference hall of Regional Library more than once. Presidential elections in Kazakhstan, cooperation between youth associations and women’s public organizations were discussed. He noticed that youth collaboration is very important for development of mutual understanding and invited representatives of neighboring states to the 1^st Eurasian Young Generation Forum which will be held in September in Orenburg.

Representatives of Russia, Kazakhstan, Tadzhikistan and Kyrgyzstan were among participants of the round-table conference. Students from the mentioned countries as well as from Uzbekistan, Azerbaidjan, Turkmenistan, and Equatorial Guinea studying at different faculties of Orenburg State University also participated.

The report "Recognition of foreign education as a factor of academic mobility" by Vera Skorobogatova aroused great interest among the participants. Vera is chief of General State Expert Centre for Education Evaluation (Federal Education and Science Supervision Agency). She emphasized that humanitarian cooperation is developing between countries regardless of political problems. Agreements for mutual recognition of education are signed between Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tadzhikistan. Economic mobility is actively developing: new branches of Russian universities are established in CIS countries, places for Unified State Examination are opened, cross-universities agreements are signed, joint education programs are coordinated, foreigners go to Russian universities according to quota (in 2015 number of students — 2 000).

OSU Rector Zhanna Ermakova, Vice-Rectors Grigoriy Piatkin and Sergey Semenov took part in the round-table conference. Zhanna Ermakova put forward an initiative to form and realize a joint educational project "Eurasian Olympiads and Competitions" in the future.

— For being really integrated the Eurasian space should became unified in educational sphere. Interests of many generations, attitude of youth for tolerance and participation in different international projects are formed in this sphere, — Zhanna said.

She assured the audience that OSU is ready to organize this project and offered to conduct competitions according to the level of education — secondary and high; and later — secondary vocational education.

A range of such events is already formed by Orenburg State University. OSU organizes a multidisciplinary competition in different subjects for many years. Winning in this competition gives extra credits for admission to the university. It can become a good support for students from neighboring countries that want to enroll to Russian universities. Rector has offered IT-competition for senior pupils, competition of creative computer works "University IT-spring", contest of drawing, painting, composition. And math tournament "Science future", competition of creative computer works, contests in statistics theory, theoretical and common electrical engineering — for students. All competitions are conducted for 5–20 years and have today regional and inter-university importance.

Grigoriy Piatkin, OSU Vice-Rector for International Activities, told about international cooperation as one of priority directions for the university. He reported that OSU has more than 100 current agreements with universities of more than 30 countries. The number of foreign students is constantly increasing; today number of students is 1 060 people from 19 countries. Economic programs are the most popular among these students. Faculties of Transport and Electrical Power Engineering are also preferable. According to Grigoriy, cooperation with partners from Kazakhstan is more successful, but there are serious prospects for teamwork with universities of Tadzhikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.

The round-table conference was finished by discussion and resolution adoption. The offer of OSU Rector Zhanna Ermakova about Eurasian Olympiads and competitions was included in this resolution as the point.