Autumn is in full swing, which means it's time to count the chickens. Throughout the season, we have been working at maximum capacity to ensure that as many international students as possible enroll in Russian universities. Of course, the pandemic is still the dominant trend in the global market, but starting from the end of summer, as people get vaccinated increasingly, the main destination countries compete with each other in terms of the strategy of opening borders to foreigners, and the source countries are trying to return to the normal schedule and organize final exams in schoolson time.
In many ways, this caused some delay in the release of the sixth issue of our magazine. We tried to collect as many observations and impressions as possible from the admissions campaign of 2021.
Our magazine is traditionally opened by regular columnists. Sergey Krasnyansky (ICEF) talks about the impact that the pandemic has on the expectations of foreign students and their decision-making about studying abroad; Larisa Taradina and the friendly staff of the RANEPA international team suggest to consider new difficulties as growth opportunities; Alexander Ruchkin (Grint Center for Education and Culture), now a permanent author of the magazine, shares his observations on the preliminary results of the 2021 enrollment campaign in the leading destination countries.
In the chief editor's article, we will discuss the main trends of the past season of student recruitment. The material is presented as an interview in order to give better answers to the questions that have been discussed in the academic community over the past year, and reflect his own observations on the results of the work carried out.
We have a rich international agenda in this issue, which is primarily due to the intensification of bilateral contacts and business trips. We will tell you about some of the events that happened during the business trip to Russia conducted by the national partner of the Education Export Center in Sri Lanka, Wimashan Wimalagunasekara from MAS, as well as about some of the highlights of the visit of CEO of Education Export Center to Egypt.
It is no secret that India is the main source of medical students in the world. Therefore, we hope that it will be interesting for you to get acquainted with how the NEET exam has been held in India this year. According to the results of this exam, it will be clear who, out of the more than 1.5 million candidates registered for the exam, will be able to study medicine.
We are also pleased to present an interview with the head of the representative office of the Kurdistan region (Iraq) Mustafa Danar about the popularity of Russian education among the region population and plans for the development of academic cooperation.
The partner section of the magazine contains a report on the ceremony celebration of the UN International Day of Peace. The Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and many others supported this event and sent their message to the participants.