Why do Arab students prefer to study in Ukraine?

Rabat -

The Russian-Ukrainian war showed the presence of a large Arab student community in Ukraine, with students pursuing their studies in different disciplines at a number of universities.

Since the Russian attack on Ukraine on February 24, the student groups have begun a difficult journey to escape themselves and get out of the cities in which they reside in the direction of neighboring countries.

These Arab students left Ukraine by surprise, leaving behind their documents and academic certificates;

Some of them returned to their country, and others are waiting in neighboring countries, waiting for the course of this war to be clarified.

The presence of a large Arab student community in Ukraine raises questions about the reasons why Arab students prefer this country to complete their university studies there, and the disciplines they are turning to, as well as the prospects offered by studying in Ukrainian universities for Arab students.

What are the numbers of the Arab community in Ukraine?

The number of Arab students in Ukrainian universities is 19,000 out of 84,000 foreign students, distributed among 157 nationalities, as of January 2022, according to official data of the Ukrainian Ministry of Higher Education obtained by Al Jazeera Net.

Students from Morocco top the list of Arab students in Ukrainian universities, and they come in second place among foreign students after the Indians, who number about 23 thousand students.

The number of Arab students is distributed according to their nationalities as follows: Morocco 9296, Egypt 2804, Tunisia 1041, Lebanon 1009, Algeria 934, Jordan 783, Syria 651, Libya 596, Iraq 455, Sudan 417, Palestine 348, Yemen 325, Somalia 167, Comoros 67, Mauritania 44, Emirates 44, Kuwait 36, Saudi Arabia 24, Bahrain 6, Qatar 2, Sultanate of Oman 2, Djibouti 2.

A graph showing the number of Arab students in Ukrainian universities by nationalities (Al-Jazeera)

Why do Arab students choose Ukraine universities to study?

Arab students prefer studying in Ukraine for a number of reasons, the most important of which is the low tuition fees.

Mohamed Elias Benfadil, director of a Moroccan student office in Ukraine, says that annual tuition fees range between $1,500 and $4,000, while university housing installments range between $500 and $1,000 annually.

Benfadil adds to Al Jazeera Net that living expenses are low and that encourages Arab students, especially from the middle and fragile groups, whose academic rates did not allow them to study specialties with limited polarization such as medicine, pharmacy and engineering in their countries, so they turn to this country to fulfill their dream of studying these fields.

These facilities encouraged the Moroccan student, Mohamed Khachani, to go to the Kharkov Medical College to study dentistry.

He tells Al Jazeera Net that the school year costs him about $4,000, which in his opinion is a low cost when compared to other countries such as Morocco, in which a year in this major costs $12,000, $20,000 in Turkey, and $40,000 in America and Canada.

In addition, the educational curriculum in Ukraine is not intensive, and universities, hospitals, and medical personnel are abundant, allowing medical students to study and train in easy and affordable conditions.

In addition to the costs, Hassan El Mardi, president of the Moroccan Association of Graduates of Former Soviet Universities and Institutes, points out that Ukrainian universities offer a large number of options in traditional and modern educational disciplines.

He points out that admission to these universities to study in the English language does not require obtaining language proficiency certificates such as TOEFL and IELTS, and it does not require a high average or total in the baccalaureate (high school/tawjihi) to enter scientific disciplines such as medicine, pharmacy and engineering.

Kharkiv National Medical University is one of the oldest medical universities in Ukraine (communication sites)

What majors do Arab students prefer to study in Ukraine?

Ukraine has more than 400 universities, and this country ranks among the top five countries in the world in terms of the number of foreign students.

Arab students are mainly concentrated in the universities of Kharkov, Kiev, Odessa and Dnipro. Medicine and pharmacy are the most popular, followed by civil engineering and architecture.

Mohamed Benfadil says that studying in Ukraine is available in Ukrainian and Russian languages, as well as English, German and French, but that studies in French have been canceled in the last two years.

The speaker explains that Arab students prefer to study in English because they are fluent in it, but this does not preclude the presence of other students who go to study in the Ukrainian language.

This category passes a preparatory year, the first semester of which includes learning the language and culture of the country, and in the second semester the student learns the terms and scientific materials that he will study at the university in the Ukrainian language in order to be linguistically qualified to join the specialization he has chosen.

Students coming to Ukraine on study visas are prohibited from practicing any profession in parallel with their education, and only those who obtain a license from the Department in charge of Migration are allowed to do so.

What are the procedures for obtaining a study visa?

The procedures for admission to Ukrainian universities are easy, and it is required to write to the universities in which the student wishes to study, and to send a copy of the passport and baccalaureate certificate.

After obtaining the acceptance letter, the student goes to the Ukrainian embassy or consulate in his country with the necessary documents to request a study visa, to which is added a statement of the bank account of his guardian containing a balance of two thousand dollars.

How was a large Arab community formed in Ukraine?

Hassan El Mardi, head of the Moroccan Association of Graduates of Former Soviet Universities and Institutes, says that the Soviet Union began in the sixties of the last century to receive foreign students from various countries, especially developing ones, within the framework of international cooperation.

He explained that Moroccan students, for example, were heading to the Soviet Union through the Russian Cultural Center in Rabat, which was distributing scholarships, and through some political parties with a communist and socialist orientation.

However, since 1991, after the dismantling of the Soviet Union, Ukraine declared its independence. In the previous stage, it had benefited from the development of the educational system in a way that made it a destination for thousands of Arab students, given the state's investment in education and its interest in the practical aspect, and its availability to internationally known university professors.

Al-Mardi points out that education in Ukraine is an investment and a door to providing important incomes for the country, incomes that come from tuition fees paid by foreign students and housing and living expenses.

After the success of the experiences of the first groups of Arab students in Ukraine, special centers appeared that facilitate travel procedures and direct students to universities suitable for their financial capabilities. Ukraine has become a preferred destination for study compared to Western countries that set complex conditions for student admission and require high costs of education and living.

Taras Shevchenko National University in Kyiv (networking sites)

What are the prospects for studying in Ukraine?

After graduating from the university and obtaining the certificate from Ukraine, the student has multiple opportunities to work in any Western or Arab country or return to his country.

Benfadil explains that the certificate obtained by an Arab student from a Ukrainian university licensed to teach foreigners can be easily equated in his country.

For the equivalency of the certificate obtained by the student from Ukraine in the home country, two simple conditions are required: The first is that the baccalaureate must be in the same specialty in which he studied at the university, for example the scientific baccalaureate degree in which scientific disciplines such as medicine, pharmacy, engineering, information and other scientific disciplines are taught.

The second condition is that the university at which he graduated is licensed by the Ukrainian Ministry of Higher Education to teach foreigners.

It is preferable for the student to pass through the reliable student registration offices to register in Ukrainian universities because they have adequate information about the recognized universities.

He explained that some Arab students choose a particular university to study for its low cost compared to other universities in the same country, but when they graduate and obtain the certificate, they are surprised that it is not possible to equate it outside Ukraine because the university in which they studied does not have a license from the Ukrainian Ministry of Education.