Universities reach out to African students who escaped Ukraine

Egyptian students who were studying at Ukrainian universities and have managed to escape the war-torn country will be able to resume their studies in their homeland if they meet the entry requirements of private and national universities.

In addition, several eastern European countries, including Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Poland and Serbia, will allow students who were previously studying at Ukrainian universities, including African students, to complete their studies at their universities and higher education institutions.

In a Twitter post, Attila Demkó, the head of Hungary’s Centre for Geopolitics, said: “Hungary is offering [the opportunity] to foreign students (from India, Nigeria and other African countries) who escaped the Ukraine-Russian war to continue their studies at Hungarian universities.

“All third-country refugees (mostly Africans) were accepted without problems and repatriated if they wished so.”

Abdisaid Muse Ali, the minister of foreign affairs of Somalia, tweeted that Somali students can continue their studies in Hungary and Serbia, following an undertaking from Péter Szijjártó, his Hungarian counterpart, and Nikola Selakovic, the minister of foreign affairs of Serbia.

He said host states will welcome Somali students who wish to continue their studies arriving in Romania, Hungary and Serbia, and Somalia will provide consular services to the students.

Ghanaian medical students have been offered about 250 places at the Medical University of Hungary and the St George’s University of Medicine in Grenada. Seven Egyptian medical students have been offered places at the Kuban State Medical University in Russia.

In addition, Bulgarian universities will also open their doors to those who studied in Ukraine, including Ghanaian students

The Nigerian government has been in talks with the governments of Poland, Greece, Romania and Hungary to enable Nigerian students in their fifth and sixth years of medical studies to complete their studies at universities in these countries.

Study abroad portals have also provided a list of medical schools in Europe, including in Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria and Italy, for international students who were enrolled in a Ukrainian university and are looking elsewhere to continue studying for their degrees.

The Afro-German organisation, Deutsch Connect, is offering free German language courses for African students who escaped and may want to continue their studies in Germany.

Egyptian students who returned to Egypt

The Egyptian Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research formed a committee which set regulations that were approved at a 10 March cabinet meeting led by Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly, according to the cabinet’s official Facebook page.

About 3,500 Egyptian students, nearly 4.6% of the total number of international students in Ukraine, mainly studying medicine and engineering, make up the third-biggest group of African students in Ukraine after Morocco and Nigeria, according to Ukraine’s Ministry of Education and Science.

In preparation for transferring them to private and national universities in Egypt, the ministry has requested evacuated students to complete an online form detailing the courses they were studying in Ukraine, their specialisations, the name of their university, and previous examination results.

How will the placement work?

The Egyptian students will be transferred to universities in Egypt that offer programmes and qualifications similar to what they studied abroad.

Available places at universities will be posted according to the capacity of each university to allow students to be transferred there. For example, Nile University has opened its admission for Egyptian and non-Egyptian students who were studying in Ukraine.

The students will apply directly to the university they intend to transfer to. Students will have to submit proof of residence in Ukraine, proof of enrolment in a Ukrainian university in the academic year 2021-22 and a certificate of the degree programmes and their scientific content to determine the academic level.

To accept the transfer of students to practical majors in Egyptian universities, they must pass the courses eligible for these majors in the General Secondary Certificate or equivalent certificates, and the student must submit a high school certificate or equivalent certificate that proves this.

In cases where students are not able to provide supporting documents from their universities in Ukraine within three months of the date of submission, the application will be cancelled.

Students will have to spend at least a full academic year at the university where they are placed.

To determine the academic placement level for medicine and pharmacy fields, they will be evaluated. A central test will take place at the faculties of medicine and pharmacy at Cairo University, and for students of dentistry and engineering at the faculties of dentistry and engineering at Ain Shams University.

Students in other fields of study will also be evaluated by the institutions where they are to continue their studies.

In the event that a student’s academic details prove to be false, their documentation will be considered invalid and the student will face legal action.

Students will also be able to apply to branches of foreign universities and institutions that were established by international agreements, according to the admission rules of those universities.

Egypt’s Supreme Council of Universities automatically recognises the degrees awarded by seven Ukrainian universities.

What do academics say?

Professor Hamed Ead, the director of the Science Heritage Center at Cairo University, welcomed the regulations.

“These are exceptional circumstances that need innovative and out-of-the-box solutions which must protect Egyptian universities’ standards and, at the same time, secure the students’ academic future, bearing in mind the relaxed admission requirements in some Ukrainian universities along with low-standard universities that are controlled by the intermediaries and brokers,” Ead told University World News.

Professor Ahmed El-Gohary, the president of the Egypt-Japan University of Science and Technology, or E-JUST, told University World News: “The decision to re-enrol the Egyptian students currently studying in Ukraine is basically a humanitarian one …

“However, the decision should not violate, by any means, the clear rules set to enrol comparable Egyptian students,” El-Gohary said.

“It is very important that everyone should understand that the exceptions that apply in this humanitarian decision is to open the gates to admit students and that there is flexibility for them to submit certificates and proof of study,” he added.

“I believe that this system for transferring Egyptian students from Ukraine to Egypt is a very simple model to support African students,” he said.