Head of the Russian Ministry of Education and Science met with the Minister of Education of Sri Lanka
Head of the Russian Ministry of Education and Science Valery Falkov and Minister of Education, Special Representative of the President of Sri Lanka for Relations with Russia Susil Premajayanta discussed the development of educational, scientific and technical cooperation between the two countries.
Today Russia attaches great importance to the development of cooperation with the Republic of Sri Lanka. In the completed academic year, 827 Sri Lankans studied at Russian universities, 120 of them at the expense of the federal budget within the quota of the government of the Russian Federation. For the 2021/22 and 2022/23 academic years, 40 quotas have been allocated, for the 2023/24 academic year – 50.
“We are ready highly qualified specialists for various individual Sri Lankan economy and social sphere. Among the Sri Lankan students, the most popular areas of medical training are business, computer science and computer technology, electrical engineering and electrical engineering, economics, and linguistics,” said Valery Falkov.
Susil Premajayanta, in turn, noted that thanks to its scholarships, which Russia has been providing to Sri Lankans since the early 1960s, more successful students received free education in medicine, economics and engineering. He also added that graduates of Soviet and Russian universities hold high positions in Sri Lanka.
In this regard, one of the priority tasks for development between states is the updating of the inter-society document on mutually recognized educations, qualifications and scientific degrees, dated November 30, 1982. Valery Falkov noted that changes in the education system in Russia and Sri Lanka over the past 40 years require increased support to simplify the protocol setup process. The signing of the document, in case of prompt expert approval, is planned at the end of this year or the beginning of next year.
The second important problem in relations between the countries is the continuation of the work of the Intergovernmental Russian-Lansk Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific and Technical Cooperation. The last time this protocol was used was 5 years ago. Nevertheless, the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia continues to keep under control the instructions following the results of the 2nd meeting of the commission, which took place in October 2017.
The agreement concerned the implementation with the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation.
Another important item of the 2017 mandate was the employment of the national institutes of basic research of Sri Lanka in the field of scientific research and research in materials science and nanotechnology. Valery Falkov drew attention to the fact that the Udmurt Federal Research Center of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences presented proposals on topics of interest to partners, which were transferred to the Sri Lankan side.
“We have many young professionals who are involved in projects in nanotechnology, applied disciplines, and we are ready to continue our cooperation in all these areas,” said Susil Premajayanta.
Summing up the meeting, Valery Falkov is confident in the continuation of fruitful conflicts committed to strengthening cooperation in the field of science and higher education between Russia and Sri Lanka.