SPbPU at the exhibition of Russian education in Egypt and Tunisia

In November, SPbPU representatives visited four exhibitions at once: two in Egypt and two in Tunisia. The Russian Education Exhibition is organized by Rossotrudnichestvo and is aimed at promoting Russian education abroad. Valery Fadeyev, Advisor to the President of the Russian Federation, Chairman of the Presidential Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights, Scientific Director of the Institute of Heritage and Contemporary Society of Russian State University of Humanities, addressed the guests, participants and visitors on the first day of the exhibition in Cairo. He considers the development of cooperation between Egypt and Russia in the field of education an extremely important work for the future. Marat Gatin, Head of the Rossotrudnichestvo representative office in Egypt, also spoke at the opening ceremony.

Almost twenty Russian universities came to Cairo. Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University was represented by Maxim Zalyvsky, Head of the Project Office of the Russian-African Network University (RAFU), and Anastasia Sidorova, Deputy Head of the Department for Work with International Students. SPbPU’s mount was very popular: it was visited by about half a thousand applicants. All of them received consultations on educational programs and admission procedure. They were interested in such fields of study and programs as IT, business administration, management, linguistics, architecture, design, PR and marketing.

On behalf of SPbPU, Maxim Zalyvsky held negotiations with Helwan University and met with representatives of the Egyptian E-Learning university, whose management is ready to sign a cooperation agreement.

The next day the exhibition continued in the city of Alexandria at the Higher Institute of Tourism, Hospitality and Restoration. Dr. Khaled Basyouni, Vice-President of the Institute, and Pavel Kidisyuk, Director of the Russian House in Alexandria, made welcoming remarks. Dr. Khaled Basyouni noted the special importance of the exhibition for the Egyptian side. University and high-school students, who were attracted by SPbPU, were told about the beginning of the admission campaign to select foreign citizens within the quota for 2024-2025. In total, more than 1200 students and high-school students visited the exhibition. They asked whether there are programs in English, whether students are provided with accommodation, whether it is possible to work part-time while studying, whether there are scholarships.

The next city visited by representatives of SPbPU was the capital of Tunisia. A sightseeing tour was organized for the guests from Russia under the guidance of Elena Eltsova, a teacher of Russian language at the Higher Institute of Languages (University of Carthage), through the main sights of the city — the ruins of the city-state of Carthage and the picturesque town of Sidi Bou Said.

At the meeting with the polytechnic, the vice-president of the largest in Tunisia University of Carthage Mongi Besbes expressed his readiness to join RAFU in the coming days, as well as to sign a memorandum of strategic partnership with SPbPU by the end of the year. On November 17, the exhibition continued in Sfax, the second largest city in the country. The event aroused great interest in the region, as it was not only the first Russian educational exhibition, but also the first Russian exhibition event of this scale in the second most important industrial region of the country.

The National Engineering School of Tunisia held a meeting with its director Kamel Ben Saad. Preliminary agreements were reached on cooperation with Tunisia’s leading polytechnic institution.

«The Russian-African Network University (RAFU) consortium is currently operating. Since July 2023, St. Petersburg Polytechnic University has been the coordinator of this project,» Maxim Zalyvsky told Rossiyskaya Gazeta. «The main goal of its work is to strengthen cooperation in education, science and economic development between Russia and the states of the African continent».

Maxim Zalyvsky and Anastasia Sidorova also visited the IFM radio station and took part in the Radio Campus program. They spoke in detail about the exhibition, admission to SPbPU and the possibility of joining RAFU.