Speaking to The PIE News during last week’s British Council Going Global conference in London, Ukraine’s deputy minister of education and science, Mykola Trofymenko, acknowledged that the country is home to fewer international students than before the war – but said that students were still drawn to its well-regarded medical schools, quality education and value for money.
He said that Ukraine had more than 80,000 international students before the war, and now has around 20,000, hailing from diverse sending countries across Africa and Central Asia as well as China, India and Bangladesh.
“We want to preserve our place in this market because foreign students really want to study at Ukrainian universities,” Trofymenko told The PIE. “We actually want to create opportunities and possibilities for them to come even now if they want – if their governments give them permission to come to Ukraine – especially… in the parts where we don’t have the active front line.”
Meanwhile, he said that Ukrainian students themselves were studying in destinations such as nearby Poland, the Baltic states, Germany and the UK. Ukraine’s conscription policy allows first full-time higher education students to defer enlisting.
We want to preserve our place in this market because foreign students really want to study at Ukrainian universities
Mykola Trofymenko, Ukrainian government
Ukraine has been under near constant bombardment since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, with some cities – such as the northern coastal city of Mariupol – almost decimated in the hostilities.
“If you are almost four years in the world with shells, rockets, strike drones every day, it is very hard for students and academic staff to actually focus,” Serhii Babak, chairman of the committee of education, science and innovations, Parliament of Ukraine, told The PIE.
While many institutions developed effective online learning platforms during the pandemic, Babak said it was important to motivate them provide face-to-face learning “just because everyone was a little bit tired after Covid times, after distant education”.
However, this approach has meant that reinforced shelters have had to be built underneath institutions to allow students to study safely in the midst of war. Now, said Babak, over 70% of Ukrainian educational institutions are protected by such shelters.
He said this was “very important” because it allowed institutions to provide in-person education, which was especially crucial for polytechnic institutions or engineering sciences programs due to their practical elements.
“We are building complete underground schools,” he said.
In late August, the British Council’s Ukrainian headquarters made headlines after it was “practically obliterated” in a Russian missile strike on the capital city of Kyiv.
“I’d like to tell everyone that the British Council’s resolve is still there,” the British Council’s director for the country, Colm McGivern, said at the time. “We will be here in Ukraine, we’ve been here 30 years. We’ll continue our work.”
