By Eugene Gerden. The Russian government is planning to up its quota for foreign students studying on state funded places at its universities by 50%. The new quota will be set at 15,000 overseas students. Gulnara Krasnova, deputy president of
Peoples' Friendship University of Russia, one of Russia’s most prestigious universities, says that increasing the quota is part of ambitious state plans to attract foreign students by creating the right conditions to both study, and later work, in the country. According to
Izvestia, one of Russia’s leading business papers, there are currently more than 250,000 foreign students from 150 countries studying in Russian universities. The Russian education ministry wants the number of foreign students to make up 6% of the student population by 2015, growing to 10% in 2018. Krasnova said that particular attention will be paid to European students as the Russian labour market is currently more promising for them than the EU, where unemployment is steadily growing. Russian unemployment rate is only 5.2%, compared with 5.4% in Germany, 7.8% in the UK,
11% in France and 12% in Italy.
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