Open Day at Prague's Carolinum
As Radio Prague notes, many are attracted by the possibility of free tuition in Czech at state universities, as well as life in one of the most visited cities in Europe. At the Technical University alone, more than 1,350 students from the former USSR are studying. Open Days held at universities in the Czech capital and abroad also contribute to attracting young people from all corners of the world to universities.
Few educational institutions in the world can boast such a pedigree as the Czech Technical University in Prague (CTU), founded back in 1707 by Austrian Emperor Joseph I. The oldest technical university in Central Europe and the oldest civilian technical university in the world is one of the members of a consortium of five Czech state universities that has signed an agreement on a project of joint presentations in the Czech Republic and abroad. Within the framework of this project, Prague is presented as a city that offers the widest range of educational programs.
"Prague's arsenal includes a wide range of university programs in a number of fields: from nuclear physics, chemical technology, psychology to theology," says Miroslav Vlček, Vice-Rector for International Relations at the Czech Technical University. "We participate in international education fairs, have visited Kazakhstan, South America, Malaysia, China, Turkey, Indonesia, and the Baltic countries. We, of course, strive to inform potential students in countries such as Russia, Ukraine, and others.
Initially, our project was aimed at informing young people who could pay for their own education, but overall it can be said that very often students come to study on the basis of existing bilateral agreements with foreign universities. This exempts them from paying tuition. We are naturally glad to have students from countries such as the mentioned Malaysia, China, Indonesia, or Vietnam, who bring funds to our budget, but overall it is quite important for us to have any foreign students in our universities. Including those who study for free on the basis of bilateral agreements or simply because they are able to learn Czech."
Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, and other people from the former USSR are able to master the Czech language quite quickly. How many of them are currently studying at the Czech Technical University and other universities in Prague?
"I mainly have data on the number of students at the Prague Technical University. Of the nearly 4,000 foreign students, about three-quarters of our students come from a dozen countries around the world. The first two places in terms of student numbers are occupied by Russia and Ukraine," notes Miroslav Vlček.
According to information provided by CTU, currently 752 Russians, 273 Ukrainians, 222 students from Kazakhstan, 76 from Belarus, 18 from Azerbaijan, and 12 from Kyrgyzstan are studying at the Technical University of Prague, which totals an impressive figure of 1,353 students, that is, about a third of all foreigners. Can we speak of certain stable preferences in the choice of educational programs among this group of students? And how many university students are studying in Czech-language programs?
"It can be said with certainty that this group is interested in medicine and technical fields," says Vice-Rector Miroslav Vlček. "I cannot single out dominant directions in these preferences, but students from Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus are clearly attracted to different scientific disciplines than, for example, students from South America. We have not yet studied this issue in detail at the university. I can say that of our 4,000 foreign students, only about half study in English, all the rest in Czech."
Alina Karpenko came to the Czech Republic from Kazakhstan and visited one of the Open Days held at Prague's Carolinum to find out more about what subjects are studied at the faculties she has chosen, as well as to listen to presentations by individual lecturers. Alina, who is currently preparing for her final exams to obtain a school-leaving certificate at a Czech gymnasium in Tábor, is interested in mathematics, so she consulted with lecturers about choosing a suitable faculty for acquiring a specialty in mathematical disciplines.
Alina visited Carolinum together with her friend Sofia Markova, who came to the Czech Republic from Tula – and she studies at the Czech gymnasium in Tábor. At this school, as the smiling interlocutors told me, there are currently six Russian-speaking students. The girls communicate with Russian-speaking acquaintances also when coming to Prague, where they additionally study Czech.
"I came to Carolinum to find out more about universities. In principle, I already know what and how, but I was interested in talking to the guys and getting additional information. I applied for media and marketing programs at Charles University and the Prague University of Economics," says Sofia.
When asked how the Russian-speaking gymnasium students are treated by their schoolmates, the girls say: "We communicate with everyone, and, in principle, foreigners are treated quite well here. At our school, they love us. Everything is fine, the main thing is to study."