MOSCOW, July 10 (RIA Novosti) – So far, 861 high-school graduates among Ukrainian refugees have expressed a desire to study at Russian universities, and 234 have already applied and passed the exams, according to the head of the Department of Government Education Policy at Russia’s Ministry of Education and Science, Irina Apikhtina.
According to the official, the refugees are to be accepted into Russian universities without any changes to current legislation.
“We are carrying out their admissions processes as if they were our compatriots,” Apikhtina said, adding that admission deadlines have been extended and an additional 1,575 state-funded places have been created in 12 Russian universities in Belgorod, Bryansk, Volgograd and Simferopol, as well as in North-Caucasus Federal University and Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia.
The graduates will not have to take more than two exams, and the universities will use the same admissions system as that operating in Crimea. There are also students that went to universities in Ukraine and now want to continue their education in Russia, who will be accepted as freshman and, in ten days, transferred to a suitable course.
A bus with the first 129 future students has arrived in Rostov Region from Donetsk. Some of the students have already left for the universities in Belgorod and Volgograd.
The number of refugees fleeing from Ukraine to the neighboring Russian regions increased dramatically late June when Kiev’s authorities resumed military operations in a crackdown on independence supporters in the southeast of the country.
