International administration clusters of universities exchange experience of enrollment of foreign citizens under CoVID pandemic

On the 12th of August, 2020, RUDN University conducted a webinar on the issues of enrollment of foreign citizens in the conditions of a hard epidemic situation.

The MPEI visiting expert was Alexander Tarasov, Vice-Rector on International Relations, with the report “Peculiarities of admission of foreign citizens in the conditions of pandemic”.

In the report, he mentioned that the coronavirus pandemic made amendments to MPEI admission campaign, such as an option for any foreign citizen to apply for enrollment and pass the entrance examination in the remote format.

The features of admission under pandemic were shown by the examples of several countries.

In Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, the consideration of the candidates’ portfolios examined under the RCSC aegis demanded to create the workgroup of the representatives of Russian Universities, including MPEI. The experts developed the method of evaluation of the candidates’ profiles. The International Administration, in particular, examined a list of 150 portfolios.

The analysis of the work of foreign branches of MPEI in Tashkent and Dushanbe was conducted as well.

The light was cast on the admission of students to Network Universities. In particular, the cooperation with the North China Electric Power Universities under the USCO agreement demanded the entrance examination and the Russian language courses to be carried out using the services of distant tuition.

Due to the possible extension of pandemic, MPEI plans to continue the distant work on the base of the Resource Centers abroad, enhance the cluster approach activities together with RUDN in Africa, carry out the extramural preparatory courses for foreigners entering the Master level, develop a plan of the Russian language teaching for the graduates of school and Bachelor level.

The transition towards the admission campaign of distant format comprises certain difficulties but also stimulates the implementation of online-technologies, opening a new potential for efficient future work.