In a bid to retain overseas students, Ukraine colleges begin online classes and requests local governments to help with practicals.
As the Ukraine-Russia conflict continues unabated, medical colleges in Ukraine have started online classes for overseas students who had to flee the war-ravaged country. While colleges site the studies of students getting affected as the reason behind starting the online classes, education counselors believe it’s their (colleges’) bid to retain students.
Colleges from other countries have been luring these students with deals such as heavy discounts, fee waivers of semesters and credit transfers.
“Ukrainian colleges have realised that students are getting impatient due to the ongoing war and the uncertainty around their future prospects,” an education counsellor working for a Ukraine college said.
He added, “They are aware that offers are floating around from colleges of other countries as well and if they don’t do something to retain the students, all of them might just choose to leave the courses midway.”
The VN Karazin Kharkiv National University has issued a letter requesting the governments in other countries to allow Ukrainian students to do their practical training in private as well as government colleges.
According to reports, the university has been completely destroyed by a Russian airstrike and the Ukrainian government is working to relocate it to a safer place.
The letter issued by Andrii Polivantsev, acting director of International Education Institute for Study and Research and Anton Panteleimonov, vice president for research and education of VN Karazin Kharkiv National University says that the university has started online classes for all international students in the spring semester of 2021-2022 but their students don’t have the opportunity to take part in practical work due to the situation in Ukraine.
“So, we ask local government officials to allow all international students of Ukrainian universities to go through practical works in local private and government hospitals depending on students’ courses in their country,” the letter said.
It added, “The report on practical training in homeland, drawn up on the form of a medical institution that indicates the amount of acquired practical skills, signed by a doctor, head of practice, will allow the university to enroll students in the spring semester 2021-2022.”
A similar request has been made by the National Pirogov Memorial Medical University, Vinnytsya. “The Faculty of Foreign Citizens Training informs that students have the full consent of the University to leave Ukraine and have practical training at hospitals and clinics that are not attached to the University and by their own choice,” a letter signed by Inna Andrushko, Higher Educational Institution, Vice-Rector for Scientific and Academic Work and International Links, said.
It added, “So, we ask local government officials to give all students access to continue with their practical work in local, private, government hospitals as per requirement of their respective courses in their own country.”
The Kyiv Medical University (KMU), which has also started classes with the help of digital technologies, highlights challenges in its communication addressed to students. It says that the university website is temporarily down due to hacking attacks and hence they would conduct the classes on Google classroom.
“Please stay connected in Google Classroom and follow all faculty members’ recommendations. Please keep in mind that most of your educators are now in Ukraine, so there might be unforeseen problems with internet connection and faculty members may not answer your questions as quickly as before,” the letter said.
Ayush Jaiswal, a first-year student of the Kharkiv National Medical University of Ukraine said, “Our online classes started from March 21. Our syllabus has both theories as well as practical classes. The university can only teach the theory part. We are looking forward to our government to make some necessary arrangements for our practical training in local private or government hospitals.”
