Focus on creating a common educational space and implementing the Union State's youth policy

Minsk hosted a joint meeting of the collegiums of the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Belarus, the State Committee on Science and Technology of the Republic of Belarus, the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation and the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation. The parties discussed the issues of cooperation in education, operation of the common scientific and technological area as well as the activities aimed at implementation of the coordinated youth policy in the Union State.

 It should be noted, сurrently the work on the formation of the common educational space and youth policy is carried out within the framework of the Priorities for further development of the Union State in 2018-2022.

 An important area of joint activities is the development of interregional cooperation. More than 89 Russian regions actively cooperate with Belarus in the field of education. More than 1 450 direct agreements have been concluded between Belarusian and Russian higher education institutions alone.

 The interdepartmental programme of measures to strengthen inter-university cooperation and increase academic mobility of students, scientific and scientific-pedagogical personnel of educational institutions of higher education in Russia and Belarus for 2020 and beyond is being implemented. In the 2019/2020 academic year, more than 2 300 Russian citizens studied at Belarusian educational institutions. The current legal framework generally ensures equal opportunities for students from the two countries to receive accessible and high-quality education at the levels of general secondary education.

 In cooperation with Russian side formed a new joint Belarusian-Russian group on the development of the system of continuing professional education for and science-intensive industries in Belarus and Russia. The issues under consideration include the creation of an efficient educational environment to shape the softskills; applications of networking mechanisms in implementation of secondary vocational and secondary special education programmes; organization of early vocational guidance (training) of schoolchildren, etc.