Amman and Rabat -

The Jordanian student Hassan Al-Sharif, who is studying at the National University in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, is eagerly awaiting the end of the war, to return to complete his last year of human medicine.

The war posed a psychological crisis to Sharif, as he tells Al Jazeera Net. The sirens, the buzzing of planes, the explosions of missiles, and the vibration of the building in which he lives still echo in his ears, and he has disturbing dreams.

The same suffering is shared by the student Omar Al-Rahahleh, who is studying dentistry in the third year at a Ukrainian university, but with the outbreak of the war his hopes of graduating stopped, and he communicates with his professors at the university electronically, but the conditions of the war and the interruption of electricity and the Internet disrupted his communications.

"Once the war stops, I will return to Ukraine to complete my studies," Al-Rahhala tells Al-Jazeera Net, but he fears the insecurity and the continuation of the guerrilla war between the separatists and the authorities there, which may disrupt the study.

Jordanian students returning from Ukraine are demanding their country's authorities to accommodate them in their universities, similar to students returning from Yemen and Sudan in previous crises, especially since their number is not large.

Platform and scenarios

In order to limit the number of students, their academic information and their university majors, the Ministry of Higher Education in Jordan launched an electronic platform on which, as of Tuesday evening, about 270 Jordanian students from 38 Ukrainian universities have registered.

The Jordanian Minister of Higher Education, Wajeeh Aweys, told Al Jazeera Net that the ministry "has several perceptions to deal with the crisis of Jordanian students studying in Ukraine, one of which is the continuation of their studies remotely, especially with the approaching exams at the end of the second semester."

Al-Rahhala and Al-Sharif participated in the same crisis with 712 Jordanian students, as they study in Ukrainian universities, and the majority of them are in medical specialties. About 160 students have returned to Jordan since the beginning of the crisis, while about 120 Jordanian students are still trapped in the Ukrainian town of Sumy, and they are waiting for an agreement between the parties. They are allowed to pass through safe crossings out of Ukraine.

Arab students..the same questions

Arab students share the same questions about their academic future. Are they waiting for the war to end to return to their universities in Ukraine?

What if the war didn't end soon?

What about their academic documents that they left in their universities because of the sudden war?

What would the situation be like if universities were bombed?

The number of Arab students in Ukraine reached 18,463 as of January 2022, out of a total of 84,000 foreign students.

Moroccans top the list of Arab students in the universities of this country, with a total of 9,296 students, followed by Egyptians with 2,804 students, then Tunisians with 1,041 students, and the Lebanese with 1009 students.

Omaima Mastari, a sixth-year medical student at Kiev University, says that the Russian attack on the capital coincided with the second semester exams, and despite her good preparation, her dreams of near graduation were aborted by Russian missiles and bombs, so she survived by herself and returned to her country.

According to Moroccan Airlines, about 2,220 Moroccans residing in Ukraine returned from the second to the 8th of March on special and discounted flights, from 4 countries: Romania, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia.

Omaima explains that the university told her and the rest of the students that the study would resume remotely, starting on March 13, but with the continued bombing of the capital, Kyiv, and the devastation it was subjected to, the situation seemed to her to be hazy.

As for Munir al-Khashani - who is studying in his last year of dentistry at Kharkiv University - he decided to go to Germany until the picture became clear.

Al-Khashani was only two months away from obtaining a dental certificate, and he could not risk what he had achieved after 7 years of study and expenses and return to his country, so he decided to go to Germany and take advantage of this period to learn the German language until the situation calms down and the picture becomes clear.


Communication and Integration

Faced with this ambiguity and uncertainty, the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research in Morocco announced the launch of a platform to inventory Moroccan students in Ukraine and their specializations and to search for solutions to continue their studies.

And registered on the platform until yesterday, Wednesday, about 5,000 Moroccan students, distributed in the disciplines of medicine, pharmacy, architecture and other fields of study, according to a statement by the Director of Higher Education and Pedagogical Development Mohamed Al-Tahri to Al-Jazeera Net.

The Moroccan official said that the Ministry of Education is currently in contact with Ukraine's neighboring countries, which follow the same educational system, to register Moroccan students wishing to complete their studies there.

However, the basic scenario that the Moroccan Ministry is working on in the event of the continuation of the war is the integration of students into the Moroccan higher education system, noting that a committee will work to study the files of those registered on the platform, so that they are integrated according to conditions that guarantee them success without obstacles.

The Egyptian Minister of Higher Education said that the crisis of Egyptian and Arab students studying in Ukraine is not easy (Egyptian press)

Not an easy task

In Egypt, Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research Khaled Abdel Ghaffar announced the formation of a committee to follow up on the academic future of returning students.

Abdul Ghaffar said - in a television interview - that his ministry is studying the available scenarios to deal with the situation through a committee that was formed.

The Egyptian minister pointed out that the issue is not easy due to the occurrence of the crisis at the end of the school year, and most students do not have documents proving their academic levels, in addition to the differences in their years of study and curricula.

The Egyptian Ministry of Immigration had launched a platform to register students returning from Ukraine, the details of which will be taken into account to solve the problems of completing their studies or graduating.

With regard to Tunisia - which has evacuated 75% of its nationals residing in Ukraine, according to the Tunisian News Agency - the Director of Public Diplomacy and Information at its Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mohamed Trabelsi, confirmed that the ministries of Foreign Affairs and Higher Education in Tunisia are coordinating with Ukrainian universities to study the available options, including continuing distance studies.

Trabelsi added that if this crisis continues, solutions will be found for students returning from Ukraine, in coordination with the Ministry of Higher Education, to facilitate the procedures for completing their studies.

In Lebanon, about 500 Lebanese residing in Ukraine were able to return to their country until last Sunday, according to the head of the Higher Relief Commission, in statements to Lebanese media.

The Lebanese Minister of Higher Education, Abbas Al-Halabi, announced that the issue of students returning from Ukraine will be presented to the Higher Education Council, and Lebanese media quoted him as saying that his ministry intends to collect data related to these students according to their educational levels and specializations, in preparation for enabling them to save their academic year and continue their studies in Lebanese universities.