ASU Rector Shares Experience of Recruiting International Students

IPR MEDIA Company, St. Petersburg State University and autonomous non-profit organization “Digital Region” has held an online seminar for top officials of educational institutions, who are in charge of international activities and work with foreign citizens, within the framework of IPR EDU.Leto, a large series of educational online events. The section “Region as Support Point of University’s Expert Strategy” involved Rector of Astrakhan State University Konstantin Markelov.

Konstantin Markelov told his colleagues about taking regional advantages in the strategy of organizing the work with foreign students. In particular, he mentioned the latest projects with the Caspian states — Caspian SEC, Scientific Commission for Science, Research and Technology and Young Scientists’ Council. According to the rector, all these initiatives are aimed at recruiting a larger number of talented people who are ready to contribute to the development of the southern macroregion.

Konstantin Markelov noted that foreign citizens get acquainted with ASU activities also through summer schools of the Russian language and culture, international expos and educational fairs. The university cooperates with consulates, embassies, associations of fellow-countrymen and Rossotrudnichestvo in order to create a safe environment for foreign students; it opens linguistic centres for their comfortable adaptation and carries out the work with Russian-speaking schools in the Caspian states.

The rector also mentioned implementation of joint diplomas on training Bachelor and Master’s degree students with universities of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tadzhikistan and South Korea as another important component of the international cooperation development. It should be recalled that ASU is part of the SCO University and implements double-degree diplomas in economics, information technology and power engineering. More than 50 students are undertaking this programme at Astrakhan State University.