On Thursday, the 14th of May, an extended meeting of the Council of rectors of the Penza region universities took place. The meeting was held by A.Gulyakov, the council chairman, rector of Penza State University.

The meeting was attended by the honoured guests who arrived in Penza to take part in the 3d International Forum “Dialogue of Cultures”: Ambassadors Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Gabriel Anicet Kotchofa (Benin), Yusuf Abasalleh (Chad), Else Nizigama Ntamagiro (Burundi), and Seko Intchasso (Guinea-Bissau), Yao Nicaise Adou, the president of the Association of International Students in Russia, and Mahamat Ya-Ya Kishine, head of the Penza branch of the Association of International Students.

The government of the Penza region was represented by Yuri Krivov, Chairman of the Government.

The agenda of the meeting included very important issues: the condition of international activity in universities of the Penza region and the prospects of its development: exporting educational services, academic exchange programmes and research and engineering relations.

International activity is a priority area for Penza State University as well as for other universities of the region. Yuri Mazei, Pro-Rector for International Affairs of Penza State University, made a speech about the development of PSU in this sphere.
About 900 international students from 40 countries of the world study at Penza State University. For the last three years the number of them increased by 100 international students per year. About 5% of students getting higher professional education in PSU are international students. 65% of them are from the CIS countries. The other international students are from: Turkmenistan - 54 %, India – 9%, China – 7%, Jordan – 4%, Iraq – 4%, Tajikistan – 3%, Turkey – 3%.

40 students from CIS countries (Abkhazia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan) and 25 students from non-CIS countries (Afghanistan, Iraq, China, Namibia, Palestine, Syria, Sudan, Chad, Indonesia) get state-financed education in Ministry of Education and Science programmes. The rest of the international students pay for their education.

The most popular educational programmes are medicine (29 % of the total number of international students), economics (27%), linguistics (7%) and law (7%). One of the most important objectives that Penza State University needs to achieve is not only to increase the number of international students but also to increase the number of countries sending their students to PSU and to improve the qualification of these students.

The second area of international affairs is cooperation. “At present Penza State University has about 50 cooperation contracts with 50 organizations, mostly universities. The most active cooperation is implementing the programmes of students’ academic mobility. We send our students to study abroad for one semester and host students from partner-universities”, reported Yu. Mazei.

One of the prospect tasks is to increase academic mobility of the PSU teaching staff.

It is also important to implement joint educational programmes with foreign partners. Currently there is one three-side programme at PSU: PSU – LETI – College of London. On finishing this programme the students get triple diploma. “Now we are actively negotiating with University of Kokshetau (Kazakhstan) about implementing a joint Master’s degree programme in psychology”, - added Pro-Rector for International Affairs of Penza State Univeristy.

The representatives of the other two universities made reports about the development of international affairs in their educational establishments.

The honoured guests shared their opinions about the questions discussed. Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Gabriel Anicet Kotchofa (Benin) thanked the university for training specialists for African countries. “We are experiencing a difficult situation in education at the moment and there is a lack of specialists in most of the areas”, said the ambassador. Gabriel Kotchofa is happy that Russia pays great attention to exporting educational services.

In conclusion the Chairman of the Government Yu. Krivov said that we still have where to grow.
“We need to unite the effort of all the universities so that the international cooperation of the region in the field of education should rise to a higher level”, concluded the Council chairman, rector of PSU, A.Gulyakov.