An international organisation, the Centre for Policy Diplomacy (CPD), has urged Ghanaians who wish to pursue further studies abroad to consider Russian universities.
It said Russia was safe and that its universities offered scholarship opportunities and a wide range of cutting-edge and advanced programmes to suit their areas of interest.
The Director of International Communications and Co-Founder of the CPD, Micah Zing, said this during a media interaction last Thursday in Accra, following a working visit by a delegation from some Russian universities to Ghana.
They comprised members of a Consortium of Russian Universities for Cooperation with African countries.
The consortium has been established under the CPD and the official visit to Ghana aimed at expanding academic and cultural partnerships between Russia and Ghana.
The CPD in Ghana serves as a bridge for developing humanitarian dialogue and educational exchange between the two nations.
Members of the delegation included representatives from the Novosibirsk State Technical University (NSTU NETI), the Saint Petersburg State University (SPbU) and the Russian University of Transport (MIIT).
Quality
Mr Zing, who studied in Russia for his Master’s and PhD, told the press that the quality of education in Russia was top-notch and that several professionals from Ghana, including doctors and engineers, have been trained there during the Soviet period and in recent times.
“The situation with the Russians is different, because we have different types of scholarships that are being provided. For example, students can apply through the Russian government scholarship programme administered by the Ministry of Higher Education, where they can secure quotas, which we call special scholarships for students, of which I was a beneficiary.
“Students from Ghana can also apply through the Open Doors system to earn admission to various Russian universities,” he emphasised.
from that, Mr Zing said the CPD also facilitated and supported students, providing scholarships and opportunities for students to study in Russia.
That, he said, had been done in countries such as “Niger, Burkina Faso and now we are in Ghana. Our main aim is to enhance collaboration with Ghanaian universities and improve upon projects that we have.”
For her part, the Executive Director of the CPD (Russia), Dr Natalia Krasovskaya, said the organisation was the creator of Russian Houses in African countries.
At the moment, she said four of such facilities had been established in Burkina Faso, Guinea, Niger and now Ghana.
The CPD, she said, had 29 universities in its consortium, operating and offering programmes and courses across different fields, most of which were suitable for African countries.
“I think it is very important to collaborate closely,” Dr Krasovskaya said, which indicated that the visit of the delegation of representatives from the three universities was the first step in that direction.
Further collaborations, she said, would be deep.
A number of Ghanaian students, she said, were in Russian universities, and they were good and hardworking, and the CPD had the pleasure of inviting more to visit the country.
The Head of the Representative Office of the CPD in Ghana, Polina Kvitnykh, said her outfit was established to promote dialogue and collaboration between Russia and Ghana in the fields of education, science and culture.
