The Ukrainian State Center for International Education said that foreign students who studied in Ukraine before the full-scale invasion did not change their study plans and the majority remained in Ukraine.
Probably, many people will be surprised: what, during the war, some foreigners went to study in Ukraine?
Yes, they want to study here.
Although, of course, invitations to study (with intentions to enter) are significantly fewer than in previous years. This is also evidenced by the data of the Ukrainian State Center for International Education.
The number of received invitations for 2022-2023 is 23,000.
Among the reasons why some foreign students abandon their intention to enter Ukrainian higher education institutions is not only fear for their lives in a country that suffers from the armed aggression of a neighboring state, but also problems with logistics. Currently, Ukraine does not have direct air connections with other countries, and this makes it difficult to get to our country.
For students from EU countries, this is not a problem, but students from other countries must obtain, in addition to the Ukrainian one, a transit visa, and obtaining them can be difficult. After all, many of our foreign students come from the so-called “migration risk” countries, which is why European countries are very cautious in giving them transit visas, because they are not sure that a foreign student will not stay on their territory, but will actually go to Ukraine.
According to The Ukrainian State Center for International Education, the TOP majors that foreign students most often enroll in Ukrainian institutions of higher education are as follows: (in descending order): management, pedagogy (high school teachers), medicine, economics, computer science, finance, and insurance , choreography, psychology, international law.
Compared to the pre-war years, the preferences of foreign students have changed somewhat. Previously, the most popular specialty was medicine, now management is in first place in terms of the number of registered invitations. This change in preferences is explained by the fact that many countries do not recognize online studies in certain specialties, especially medical ones. Our universities were forced to switch to this form of education after the start of a full-scale invasion. From the next academic year, many of our educational institutions will switch to offline learning, and foreign students will also be able to study in classrooms. Perhaps this will increase the flow of foreign students to Ukraine in the upcoming admissions campaign.
According to the results of the USCIE study, foreign students usually receive information about study opportunities in Ukraine in three ways: recommendations of those who have already studied here (“word of mouth”), information from educational agencies (contractor firms) and data from the websites of Ukrainian embassies.
And if you analyze which specialties people from other countries want to enroll in Ukrainian higher education institutions, you can see certain trends. As already mentioned, the most popular among foreign students is the “management” specialty. But students from China and India are leading here.
People from India are also the most among those who want to enter medicine. Students from China predominate among foreign applicants who will enter many popular majors: pedagogical sciences, computer sciences, law, finance, psychology. This is not surprising, because applicants from this country, as well as students from India, are the largest group of foreign students in the world.
There are specialties to which only applicants from China applied – for example, choreography. It is worth noting that Ukrainian art education has always been interesting for applicants from China, and in past admission campaigns they submitted documents for admission in art specialties.