LESS BUREAUCRACY, MORE POSSIBILITIES – SE “UKRAINIAN STATE CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION” INTRODUCES AUTOMATIC REGISTRATION OF INVITATIONS FOR STUDY FOR FOREIGN STUDENTS

SE “Ukrainian State Center for International Education” of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine introduces automatic registration of invitations for study for foreigners and stateless persons. This was reported on the Center’s website on Monday, November 9, 2020.

Such an experiment is carried out within the framework of the development and implementation of the Unified interdepartmental electronic platform in the field of enrolment of foreign students.

“No checks by the state enterprise “Study in Ukraine” on the correctness and completeness of the information in the invitations for study or the right of the entrant to obtain higher education in Ukraine”, – emphasizes the director of the Center Olena Shapovalova.

The higher education institution enters information in the invitation. After a university registers an invitation, foreign applicants can review it at: https://db.intered.com.ua/enrollee.aspx

In case of errors or the need to add information to the registered invitation, the university operator must contact the chat of the “Electronic Journal”.

The Center has sent out a corresponding letter to higher education institutions.

In addition, the State Enterprise “Ukrainian State Center for International Education” reminds of the methodological support to universities that provide or seek to provide services to foreign students. More information about study opportunities and information about entry, stay in Ukraine, programs of social adaptation of foreigners, student learning experience – on all this the Center continues to inform on its website https://studyinukraine.gov.ua/ and Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/studyinukraine.gov.ua.

The project envisages:
• Integration of foreign students into the cultural, ethnic, social environment of Ukraine and the European Union.
• Improving the skills of academic staff on pecularities of international students training.
• Capacity building of international offices, improving the quality of administrative services.

Project Duration: 15.11.2020-14.11.2023

Project Coordinator:
Netherlands Business Academy, the Netherlands

Project Co-Coordinator:
KROK University, Ukraine

Partners:
• Foggia University, Italy;
• Ostbayerische Technische Hochschule Amberg-Weiden, Germany;
• Mykolas Romeris University, Lithuania;
• Yuriy Fedkovych Chernivtsi National University, Ukraine;
• National University of Water and Environmental Engineering, Ukraine;
• Odessa National Politechnical Uniiversity, Ukraine;
• Mariupol State University, Ukraine;
• Sumy National Agrarian University, Ukraine;
• V.N.Karazin Kharkiv National University, Ukraine;
• Ivan Franko National University, Ukraine;
• Ukrainian State Centre for International Education, Ukraine;
• Hultgren Nachhaltigkeitsberatung UG, Germany.

The project is co-funded by the European Union.
Looking forward to a fruitful cooperation and efficient partnership!

Today, on July 3, 2019 director of the Ukrainian State Center for International Education Dr. Olena Shapovalova visited the First Forum of Graduates of Ukrainian Universities from Lebanon. The Forum was held in Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, specially supported by the Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of Ukraine in Lebanon Mr. Ihor Ostash. The participants were welcomed by the deputy Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine Mr. Maksym Strikha. The Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of Lebanon Mr. Ali Daher underscored the importance of educational cooperation for tomorrow’s challenges: “If you want to build a road to the moon, build the school first” – said the Ambassador.

For now, there are 1070 students from Lebanon studying in Ukraine, 18 of them are getting a PhD degree. Ukraine welcomed the first student from Lebanon in 1906 – it was a famous Lebanese poet Mihail Nuayma , who studied in Poltava for 5 years. Lebanese graduates from Ukrainian universities become truly successful at – for instance, Mr. Bilal Abdalla, the deputy of Parliament of Lebanon studied in Kharkiv.

Today, rector of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv Mr. Leonid Huberskyy and rector of the National University of Lebanon Mr. Fouad Ayoub have signed a cooperation agreement. The Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine is giving 5 scholarships to students from Lebanon to study in Ukraine for 2019-2020 academic year. Dr. Olena Shapovalova declared that #studyinukraine is doing its best to get more Lebanese students to come to Ukraine in the future.

#studyinukraine is grateful to the head of the Club of Lebanese Graduates Zoukan Jaramani for the organization of this event and emphasizes the importance of working with graduates as a part of global effective educational practice.

On June 18, 2019, the director of the Ukrainian State Center for International Education Dr. Olena Shapovalova visited the University Partnership Workshop of #educationusa, which took place at Ukrainian Catholic University.

Dr. Olena Shapovalova reported on academic mobility programs between Ukraine and the USA. For instance, KNEU has a common MBA master’s program with the Business school of Redlands University (California). In addition, the following directions of future cooperation were emphasized:

–          user-friendly websites

–          international education fairs

–          conference networking

–          university consortium work

–          alumni and current students

–          recruitment agencies

–          foreign commercial service/state department

–          sister cities

The #studyinukraine team works on improving our website for better usability and relevance.

On June 23, 2019 the director of the Ukrainian State Center for International Education Dr. Olena Shapovalova with the #studyinukraine team joined the delegation of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine in attending the Ukrainian-Israeli educational forum “Collaboration inspires Innovation”, led by the Deputy Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine Mr. Roman Greba.

Delegates were welcomed by the president of Ariel University Mr. Michael Zinigrad. Topics such as the creation of common Israeli-Ukrainian innovative parks, academic acceleration programs, and scientific research commercialization were discussed.

Israeli experience shows that every university has a fundraising department, which would be useful for Ukrainian universities to help accumulate more funding.

On June 10-14, 2019 the director of the Ukrainian State Center for International Education Dr. Olena Shapovalova joined the official delegation of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine led by the Deputy Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine Mr. Roman Greba. The chief of the Head Department of Directorate of Strategical Development and European Integration of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine Stella Shapoval, head of the Department of International Agreements and Recognition of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine Olha Kotova and the director of Informational and Image Center of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine Victoria Sergiyenko took part in the work of the delegation as well.
The official delegation had a meeting with the rector of the University of Science and Technologies of Beijing Mr. Yang Renshu. The University of Science and Technologies of Beijing has 180 universities-partners overseas and 500 professors-foreigners. Chinese colleagues demonstrated an interest in developing cooperation with Ukrainian technical universities-members of QS World Rankings and creating common laboratories together in the future.

Also, the delegation visited the third meeting of the Ukrainian-Chinese educational subcommission. The Deputy Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine Mr. Roman Greba together with the Deputy Minister of Education of the People’s Republic of China Mr. Sung Yao presided over the meeting. As a result, it was agreed to increase the number of scholarships for Ukrainian and Chinese students to 200, opening more Confucius centers in Ukraine, establishing common scientific centers and enterprises.

Next, the visitors had an appointment with Nanchang University, situated in the area more than 1 million square meters in size, training 50000 students and employing 2600 members of staff. The delegates were familiarized with the local facilities and discussed the academic mobility perspectives.

On May 26 – June 4, 2019, Study in Ukraine team, headed by the director of Ukrainian State Center for International Education Dr. Olena Shapovalova visited NAFSA 2019 annual conference and expo “Global Leadership, Study and Change” for new experience and presentation of Ukrainian higher education.

There were scheduled more, than 200 workshops, events and sessions for leadership programs, pre-university training, and global study support. More, than 3500 different organizations, 10 000 participants from 100 countries took part in the solemn opening ceremony, held by United States ex-Secretaries of State Madeleine Albright and Colin Powell, who emphasized on the importance of international education as a power of global dialogue.

Also, Dr. Olena Shapovalova had a meeting with U. S. Department of State representative Matthew P. Washburn and chief of USA Study Abroad at U.S. Department of State Heidi L. Manley, where the perspectives of cooperation between Ukraine and USA were widely discussed: academic mobility programs, international offices development in universities and double diploma were additionally highlighted.

As a result, educational cooperation between Ukraine and America got new prospects and the #studyinukraine team had a lot of new ideas and experience to expand Ukrainian higher education for international students.

From April 26 to May 3, 2019, the Director of the Ukrainian State Center for International Education, Olena Shapovalova, came to Israel, Tel Aviv with an official visit.

During the visit, a meeting was held with the Ambassador of Ukraine to the State of Israel, Mr. Gennadiy Nadolenko, during which the program of Ukrainian-Israeli cooperation in the educational sphere was discussed. The peculiarity of the situation is that the State of Israel has decided on the automatic recognition of medical education diplomas only for OECD member countries – the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. However, Ukrainian universities do have the opportunity to undergo accreditation and be recognized. We are working to include Ukrainian universities in the World Federation for Medical Education (WFME) and the introduction of IFOM testing for medical specialties.

A meeting was also held with the director of the Al-Qasemi Academy, Mr. Khalid Arar and the leadership of the international department of the Academy, during which various areas of cooperation were discussed, including academic mobility within Erasmus and double diplomas, but most importantly, joint defense of dissertations on humanitarian sciences, and  pedagogical ones in particular.

Another meeting that took place was with leaders of Transfotech, one of the leading companies in the field of innovation, not only in Israel, but also in the global market. The parties discussed the possibilities of joint Ukrainian-Israeli educational programs in medicine, programs of short-term exchanges of specialists and advanced training programs.

The Second Ukrainian International Education Forum was held on March 26-27, 2019 in Kyiv.

The Forum was opened by the Minister of  Education and Science of Ukraine, Mrs. Lilia Hrynevych, who, in her speech, mentioned all the important aspects of teaching foreigners in Ukraine. The positive thing is that the number of international students increased by 10,000 compared with 2018, but students continue to jostle  the injustice of an employment contractors, which leads to economic and image losses in Ukraine.

During her speech, Lilia Hrynevych, as well as a year ago, emphasized that the training of foreigners in Ukraine should be based on three principles: the transparency of the entry procedure, the safety of students while staying in Ukraine, and the quality of educational process itself.

During the Forum, the Minister also said that this autumn will be the first trial language exam. “This will be a pilot project in which not all the Institution of Higher Education will participate. But starting from 2020 language External independent evaluation will pass all international students after finishing first academic year of studying. This issue is covered by The Ukrainian Center for Education Quality Assessment (UCEQA),” said Lilia Hrynevych.

What about the international departments at universities, it was spoken about new licensing conditions that strengthened the requirements for educational institutions that train foreign citizens. “So, for admitting international students to study, the institution must necessarily have a structural office for working with foreign citizens, which functions, in particular, include the issuance of invitations to study and ensuring that such students are staying in Ukraine legally. It is also obligatory to have student accommodations in institutions of higher education, where international student can comfortable live,” – said Lilia Hrynevych in her speech.

The  Deputy Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine,  Roman Greba spoke in his speech about the establishing of the StudyPass (student’s electronic cabinet). Student’s personal information is protected by modern Blockchain technology, which has been working since 2018. This innovation was very welcomed by Embassies of partner countries. Already, just on the site studyinukraine.gov.ua, the student has the opportunity to check the data of his invitation and learn information about the university, agent, Embassy and much more useful information.

During the forum there were a number of discussions and speeches on the topic of teaching international students in Ukraine, the normative and legal provision of higher education in Ukraine, discussed the problems and prospects of medical education in Ukraine.

Deputy Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine Yuriy Rashkevich spoke about licensing requirements for the training of international students in Ukraine. “Under the current Licensing Terms, it is written that preparation of foreign students is licensed for each specialty separately. That means, if the higher education has a wide range of specialties and wants to study foreigners for each of them, it must prepare a package of documents for each direction. As a result, we have many complaints from educational institutions that they have to spend a lot of time and resources on the preparation of documents, the information that is often duplicated. Therefore, in the course of changes to the Licensing Terms, we offer institutions to obtain one, separate license for the training of foreign students. It should be issued only in accredited specialties “, – said Yuriy Rashkevich.

During the second day of the Forum a number of projects were presented, among them ERASMUS + academic mobility programs by Ivanna Atamanchuk, Conjoint international programs of the US Government and the opportunities of the internationalisation of  education by Elizaveta Shchepetylnykova and Veronika Aleksanich, Taras Finikov presented united  Ukrainian-Polish project “Innovation University and Leadership” .

To see all photos please follow the link.

We kindly remind you about the Second Ukrainian International Education Forum, which will be held on March 26-27, 2019. The forum will be attended by the Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine Liliia Hrynevych.

The registration of participants will start at 8.30.

Participation in the Forum is possible only for registered guests who have received the confirmation e-mail.

We are waiting for you!