News & Events in Belarus

MINSK, 1 October (BelTA) – Preserving and developing our national education traditions, we understand the need and prospects of cooperation between the CIS countries. Today there is a need for a wider social partnership, including in the common education space, Education Minister of Belarus Sergei Maskevich stated at the Third CIS Congress of Teachers and Education Workers on 1 October, BelTA has learned.

Belarus has been actively sharing experience with its counterparts from the Commonwealth of Independent States in the organization and optimization of the education content, the legislative expertise. The Olympiad movement is used to enhance the quality of education. Large-scale cooperation is in full swing among young people. For instance, in 2012-2014 a total of 639 education workers from the CIS countries enhanced their qualifications at the national institute of professional education. Of them 455 were from Kazakhstan, 171 – from Russia, 11 – from Tajikistan and 2 – from Azerbaijan.

“Among promising areas in cooperation can be the development of common pedagogical mobility programs for the CIS with a view to enhancing the qualifications of the pedagogical personnel. Apart from the aspects of content, programs will envisage mechanisms which will be used by specialists of different countries to realize the professional exchange based on a fixed interstate quota,” Sergei Maskevich said. The minister believes it appropriate to continue the development of such forms of cooperation as mutual exchanges between groups of pedagogues to discuss education issues of current importance. “For young specialists it is important to consider an opportunity of organizing a youth festival of pedagogical ideas and solutions,” the minister added.

Belarus is ready to share its best practices in vocational technical training. One of possible forms of cooperation in the training of highly-qualified specialists and engineering professions can be the development of a network-based college of vocational technical and secondary special education in the CIS, the project initiated by Belarus.

The minister also noted another important mission of the CIS education system which is the cooperation in higher education. “Cooperation between our countries in higher education is the most efficient today. The CIS systems of higher education are mutually enriched and complemented. I will name just one figure: more than half out of over 16,000 foreigners that receive higher education in Belarus come from CIS member states,” Sergei Maskevich said.