Foreign students will become Russia's "soft power"
The task of Russian higher education is so much to select the best of the best foreign students, but also to ensure that they return to their homeland as ambassadors of goodwill.
The head of Rossotrudnichestvo Evgeny Primakov stated this at a press conference, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“I would also like to say something about students. There is a decision by the president, there is a decision by the Duma to double this quota of 150 thousand people by 2023-2024. We don’t know what the economic situation will be like due to corona, it’s not easy, but we assume that there is a solution and the number of students will increase. Of course, first of all, we are interested in more students coming from our former Soviet republics, from the CIS countries, from Central Asia, and so on.
What is important here is this: there is a big difference between the way the same British Council and US Eight work - Americans, Europeans and so on. For them, the story of getting an education is a way to drain their brains. Let's be clear about this - take the most talented guys, train them and keep them.
We have a different task. We must train them and bring them back - not for migration reasons at all, because these are trained, qualified people. We might be interested in keeping them, but they should work as our ambassadors of humanitarian goodwill at home and strengthen the sovereignty of their country, and the friendliness of their country towards Russia. That is, this story with education, in our understanding, can never be something that weakens your countries,” Primakov said.
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