Director of the Ukrainian State Center for International Education Olena Shapovalova and Deputy Director Olena Sulyma came to Malaysia with an official visit for 8th-11th of October 2018. Ukrainian delegation took part in the 6th global higher education forum “Thriving for Knowledge, Industry and Humanity in Dynamic Higher Education Ecosystem”.

During their stay in Malaysia, Ukrainian delegation and representatives of Ukrainian Embassy in Malaysia held a meeting with Deputy Minister of Education of Malaysia Teo Nie Ching, Executive Director of Malaysian Qualifications Agency Dr. Rahman binti Mohamed, Deputy Director of the Department of Skills Development in the Ministry of Human Resources of Malaysia Zaihan bin Shukri and Deputy President of Kuala-Lumpur University Dr. Azanam Shah Hashim, visited the Center for development of advanced technologies.
Questions regarding the current and future states of Ukrainian-Malaysian cooperation in higher education were discussed during the meetings.

Director of the Ukrainian State Center for International Education Olena Shapovalova gave an interview to the Malaysian National News Agency Bernama. The interview can be found here: www.bernama.com
As a result of the visit, it can be stated that the Malaysian side is interested in cooperation with Ukraine on governmental level, as well as between educational institutions of both countries.

The director of Ukrainian State Center for International Education Olena Shapovalova participated in the 30th Annual EAIE Conference and Exhibition which took place from 11th-14th of September 2018 in Geneva, Switzerland.
5500 professionals from 95 countries took part in EAIE-2018, for whom 180 sessional meetings and 19 workshops were held. Hundreds of educational institutions from all over Europe represented their educational capabilities at the Exhibition.
EAIE Conference is the largest in scope and representation educational event in Europe, the goal of which is to improve the internationalization of higher education.

On September the 5^th, the director of Ukrainian State Center for International Education Olena Shapovalova participated in the opening of the Ukrainian-Azerbaijani center under Poltava National Technical Yuri Kondratyuk University. The center was founded within the framework of continuous cooperation of the PNTU with educational institutions and educational foundations of Azerbaijan.

The goal of the center’s activity is to develop cooperation in the area of education and science, to promote culture and to study the shared history of Ukraine and Azerbaijan. The initiative to establish the center was supported by Azerbaijani partners who are acting as its co-founders.

Among the participants of the opening ceremony were the rector of Poltava National Technical Yuri Kondratyuk University professor Volodymyr Onyshchenko, and the rector of Azerbaijan State Oil and Industry University Mustafa Babanli.

Also, for the first time in Ukraine, the heads of these two institutions have signed an agreement about starting mutual training of specialists in accordance with the “double diploma” program between Poltava National Technical Yuri Kondratyuk University and Azerbaijan State Oil and Industry University. This event has started a new page in the development of Ukrainian-Azerbaijani cooperation in education.

Since 2018, the “National Eligibility -cum- Entrance Test” (NEET) is mandatory for all Indian students for the eligibility for admission for MBBS course.
 

According to the Note of the Embassy of India in Kyiv, No.Kyiv /326/1/18 dated 30 July 2018, agents/companies who have brought Indian students to MBBS course or preparatory course for September 2018 session without clearing NEET examination will be blacklisted.
 

Agents/companies and universities to enroll Indian students without NEET qualification are answerable to the question of such admission.
The MCI recognition might be cancelled for the universities who admit students from India without clearing NEET examination.

From January 2018 to July 2018, 25 263 foreign students have received an official invitation to study in Ukraine. The greatest demand for Ukrainian education was shown by the citizens of Morocco – they received over 4 thousand invitations. Today, on July 31^st, the appropriate statistics were released by the Ukrainian State Center for International Education.

“The unveiled data suggests that far more foreign students have received an opportunity to study in Ukraine this year, than in the previous years. For comparison – 18 214 invitations were registered in the seven months of 2017, and around 12 thousand in 2016.” –  explained the director of USCIE, Olena Shapovalova.

Throughout 2018, most invitations were given to citizens of these countries:

1 Morocco (4 254),

2 India (3 210),

3 Nigeria (1 987),

4 Turkmenistan (1 724),

5 Egypt (1 161),

6 Ghana (1 136),

7 Algeria (1 115),

8 Pakistan (950),

9 China (882),

10 Turkey (634).

On July 19th the director of USCIE Olena Shapovalova took part in a meeting with the ambassadors from countries of Middle East, Africa and Asia, citizens of which study in Ukraine. The meeting was initiated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in order to discuss problems regarding the studying of foreign students in Ukraine and develop ways of solving them. The ambassadors were addressed by the Deputy Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine Roman Greba. Members of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Security Service of Ukraine, National Police and Ministry of Healthcare of Ukraine were also invited to take part in the discussion.

Overall, interest in discussing a wide range of issues surrounding international education in Ukraine was shown by ambassadors of Algeria, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Egypt, India, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, China, Kuwait, South Korea, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Nigeria, Palestine, Pakistan, South Africa, Sudan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

Questions regarding the quality of education and the accessibility of the studying process itself were discussed during the meeting. A separate meeting will take place with the leadership of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in order to discuss issues surrounding visas. All parties agreed that such meetings are useful and allow us to overcome hardships that occasionally occur in the process of training foreign students in Ukrainian educational institutions.

July 3, 2018 a meeting between the Deputy Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine Roman Greba and the director of the Ukrainian State Center for International Education Olena Shapovalova with a delegation from the Sudan was held.

During this meeting the prospects for the development of interstate dialogue in the field of education were discussed. In particular, an agreement was reached on signing the relevant Memorandum of Cooperation and holding a number of joint cultural and educational events. The issues of granting scholarships for students, establishing cooperation between universities of the two countries, issues of obtaining visas were mentioned.

On June 26, 2018 Poltava hosted a scientific and methodological seminar “Internationalization of Educational Activity of Higher Educational Institutions in Ukraine”, organized by the Ukrainian State Center for International Education together with the Poltava National Technical Yuri Kondratyuk University. At the seminar the issues related to the training of foreign students were discussed.

Olena Shapovalova, director of the Ukrainian State Center for International Education, Mykola Yakymenko, deputy head of the migration service of Ukraine in the Poltava region, rector of the PoltNTU, professor Volodymyr Onyschenko, representatives of higher educational institutions of Kharkiv, Cherkasy, ​​Kherson and the Poltava region, as well as foreign students of PoltNTU took part in the seminar.

On June 6-8, 2018 the director of Ukrainian State Center of International Education Dr. Olena Shapovalova visited Cherkasy National University named after Bohdan Khmelnytsky.

Dr. Olena Shapovalova took part in roundtable discussion “The future and present of African and Asian countries” and the ceremony of opening of the new project “ChNU Ambassadors” with handing over the certificates to the international students, who will represent the university at their home countries.
Also Dr. Olena Shapovalova had an opportunity to join the Day of communication of the international students with the rector Olexandr Cherevko, gave an interview to the students’ television and visited the laboratory Hotel and Restaurant business and Ukrainian embroidery museum.

During April 16-28, 2018, a large delegation of Ukrainian educators visited the Republic of Brazil for the first time. Deputy Head of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine Roman Greba, Director of the State Enterprise “Ukrainian State Center for International Education” Olena Shapovalova, People’s Deputy of Ukraine, co-chairman of the group of inter-parliamentary contacts with Brazil Viktor Romanyuk, People’s Deputy of Ukraine, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Education of the Verkhovna Rada’s Committee on Science and Education Taras Kremin, the Chairman of the Dnipro regional Council Gleb Prygunov, the Honorary Consul of the Republic of Brazil in the city of Dnipro Oleg Vasilenko took part in the historic mission to this country.

In order to participate in educational exhibitions and other events in the trip to Brazil, the representatives of 7 universities of the Dnipro city also joined the working group. There were the participants from the University of Customs and Finance, the National Metallurgical Academy of Ukraine, the Oles Gonchar National University of Dnipro, the National Mining University, the University of Alfred Nobel, Dnipropetrovsk Medical Academy, Dnipro Medical Institute of Traditional and Alternative Medicine, and Kyiv Medical University.

 

Important meetings with representatives of the authorities and educators of Brazil were intended to establish strong ties between Ukraine and Brazil in the scientific and educational fields. In particular, Roman Greba met with officials from the state of Rio de Janeiro, the Federal University in Rio de Janeiro and the Federal University in Sao Paulo. The fruitful negotiations have been held at the FINEP Innovation Foundation. Cooperation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine is coordinated with the Ambassador of Ukraine to Brazil Mr. Rostislav Tronenko.

The Director of Ukrainian State Center for International Education Olena Shapovalova informed about the work of the Ukrainian State Center for International Education, the potential of Ukrainian universities and the major innovations in the field of internationalization of education that are being introduced in Ukraine.

More broadly and substantively, the Dnipro universities and Ukrainian State Center for International Education  were presented at the ExpoPoss 2018 “Recruit Higher Education Students” from Brazil in the city of Rio de Janeiro and in San Paolo. Ukrainian universities were united under the joint “Study in Ukraine” brand and raised a lively interest among the Brazilian youth.

The Ukrainian State Center for International Education took part in the international educational conference FAUBAI 2018, the largest event on the entire South American continent for the first time.

In addition, the Ukrainian educators visited the capital of Paraná, Curitiba, where the Ukrainian diaspora is the largest in Brazil. The meetings were held at the local university UNICENTRO, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and with representatives of the Ukrainian community.

 

Such a trip to Brazil actually means the opening a large and perspective Brazilian educational market for Ukraine, as well as a new opportunities for cooperation between Ukraine and Brazil in the science, and, in particular, innovations.

Participation in the trip of people’s deputies and the leaders of one of the most powerful Ukrainian regions has highlighted the serious interest of Ukraine in establishing sustainable cooperation with Brazil in the field of internationalization of education and science.

Important success factors of the business trip are in the fact, that a large number of universities responded to the opportunity to introduce themselves and attract students from the new country to study, as well as the fact that the Ukrainian delegation worked together for the idea of ​​”Study in Ukraine”, the brand, the formation and promotion of which in the information space for a long time was widely shared by Ukrainian State Center for International Education.