Cooperation between Russia and Armenia in the field of the higher education has a good future

SU-HSE began to develop cooperation with Armenia in the outgoing year 2009. SU-HSE aims to achieve the status of the Russian international university working on the stage of international education and for different countries, including European and others. And it would be strange if the SU-HSE didn’t think about the other countries with which cooperation existed long ago and so in addition to the development of our partnership with the universities of America and Europe we intend to establish partnership relations with educational institutions of Armenia and other countries of the former USSR. Actually we start with Armenia.

The first visit of the new Office for Cooperation with CIS countries and Baltic States was in Armenia. There were two visits to Armenia during autumn and winter 2009. During the first visit, which was conducted in the framework with the Russian industrial exhibition pro-rector of SU-HSE, Chetvernina Tatiana Yakovlevna, a well-known economist and expert on social policy, deputy Director of the branch of the SU-HSE in Saint Petersburg, Daniil Alexandrov, sociologist, an expert on education, migration and other social problems were in Yerevan. At that time we met with the leaders of various institutions, held a round table discussion on migration issues at the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia, met with the director of the institute of philosophy, sociology, law, academic secretary of the academy as well as with other colleagues. We also visited the Yerevan State University, Russian-Armenian (Slavonic) University. During these meetings we discussed prospects of future cooperation with colleagues from various departments. During the first visit among the group of SU-HSE were also psychologists who carried through psychological training to teachers in Yerevan school named after Alexander Pushkin. A meeting with parents also took place, where lecturers of SU-HSE told about the university and asked parents what they are interested in, what are their concerns about the possible travel of their children to study in Russia, because the feedback is very important for us. Armenian students of SU-HSE formed the Armenian club SU-HSE. The second visit took place in connection with the days of the Russian Language in Yerevan. Apart from pro-rector Professor Tatiana Chetvernina the professor of SU-HSE Elena Penskaya visited Yerevan having conducted the lectures for teachers of the Russian language in the schools of Yerevan.

Now we have set goals and directions of cooperation between SU-HSE and scientific and educational institutions of Armenia. We would like to implement joint research projects with colleagues from Armenia including educational as well as research projects because our university has now received the status of the research institute. We don’t separate our scientific work from educational because we want our students, the Armenian students to participate in these projects and study their specialty, whether it be economics or sociology at the specific examples, to work on concrete projects in the research command activities.

Leadership of our university adopted a very important crucial decision: we will accept for studying at our university all the applicants successful in the Olympiads or other special tests for free for all applicants, because in principle, there are quotas for students, for example, from Armenia. But these quotas are small and are not always realized in practice. Our university, which currently exists under the government of Russia has certain privileges and rights in the sense that we can make decisions how we conduct these entrance tests, how we conduct our work with applicants. And it is very important that the talented students that are good at social sciences, mathematics, business, computer science, and other areas enter our university. They will receive free education, they will receive a hostel along with Russian students and all that will be determined only on the basis of the quality of the taken examinations. Our goal is to provide an opportunity for talented children wishing to study in Russia and then return to Armenia with the new knowledge that could be obtained only in our university. We perceive our relationship with Armenian universities not as competitive, but as a partnership and we expect that after some time there will be the system of internship of Armenian students in our universities and our students will be also able to apply for training and practice in Yerevan. We expect to organize the joint Russian-Armenian Students Conference to be held in Yerevan.

I think that all that will create a solid foundation for long-term cooperation, because we will have interaction at the students level. We want our students to meet and become friends of the students of Yerevan. We will interact at the level of teachers and it will be a good partnership.

It seems to me that every student must possess different educational and life experience that includes international education and training in various educational institutions during his professional training for future work and future life. There continues to be the continuation of Russian language teaching at school in Armenia and any knowledge of foreign languages, including Russian, is a resource for a young person that he or she can use.