Rector of St Petersburg University Nikolay Kropachev: more than 180 applications submitted to the St Petersburg University Online School

Today, more than 180 schoolchildren from 38 countries of the world have already applied to study. This was announced at a press conference in the Russian News Agency TASS by: Nikolay Kropachev, Rector of St Petersburg University and Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences; Aleksandr Babich, Senior Vice-Rector for Youth Policy and Admissions; and Elena Kazakova, Director of the Institute of Pedagogy at St Petersburg University.

The unique educational project ‘St Petersburg University Online School’ is set to enable schoolchildren across the globe to receive educational credentials to enter Russian universities without having to make their educational credentials acceptable in Russia. The first university Russian general education school will begin its work on 1 September 2023 at St Petersburg University. The project is held with the support of the Government of the Russian Federation and the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation.

‘Today, St Petersburg University is a world-class research and educational centre that has been the flagship of the development of pedagogical skills for three centuries, keeping pace with the time, modernising and improving approaches to teaching. The University has the high-calibre academic staff and valuable experience in online learning. This means that the University can and should use its competencies to solve the urgent challenges that modern society is facing today,’ said Nikolay Kropachev, Rector of St Petersburg University and Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

I am sure that the St Petersburg University Online School will enable its students not only to receive a high-quality school education, but also to enter the best Russian universities.

Nikolay Kropachev, Rector of St Petersburg University

From 1 September 2023, Russian-speaking schoolchildren will be able to study not only individual disciplines, but go through a full academic programme. For schoolchildren, this education will be free. Based on the results of successful training, they will receive educational credentials that will make it possible to enter Russian universities without having to make their educational credentials acceptable in Russia.

The educational project ‘St Petersburg University Online School’ has been implemented at the University since 2018 as an additional education for international students in the format of a weekend school. In the first year, 70 senior schoolchildren from Latvia became its participants. Today, more than 2,700 schoolchildren from 11 countries of the world are studying in the school.

Documents are accepted from 15 May to 10 July 2023. The admission plan is 120 students, with 20 people for each school class. According to Rector of St Petersburg University, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences Nikolay Kropachev, it is planned to increase the number of students up to 3,000 people. Entrance examinations are in a remote format. They are conducted in writing in the Russian language and mathematics. Today, there are applications submitted by more than 180 students who study in the fifth to tenth school classes from Israel, Canada, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Moldova, the USA, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Australia, Türkiye, Montenegro, India, Tunisia, Germany, Lebanon, Malaysia, Romania, Turkmenistan, Italy, Armenia, Costa Rica, Slovenia, and Nicaragua to name just a few.

Aleksandr Babich, Senior Vice-Rector for Youth Policy and Admissions at St Petersburg University, said that today St Petersburg University is the leader in the admission of foreign citizens according to the Federal Agency for the Commonwealth of Independent States Affairs, Compatriots Living Abroad, and International Humanitarian Cooperation. In the last academic year, more than 21,000 applications were submitted, and the competition amounted to more than 20 people per place.

The popularity of the University at the global level is largely due to the opportunity to teach the Russian language and adapt students to study. We have all the resources to ensure a good level of Russian language proficiency for students, both university students and schoolchildren. Thanks to the St Petersburg University Online School, they will be able to study school subjects according to the standard programme.

Aleksandr Babich, Senior Vice-Rector for Youth Policy and Admissions at St Petersburg University

During the presentation of the project, Elena Kazakova, Director of the Institute of Pedagogy at St Petersburg University and Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Education, drew attention to the complexity of organising high-quality education in a hybrid format. Among the challenges that have aroused are the following: the diversity of time zones in which students live; different levels of Russian language proficiency; and different levels of knowledge of school subjects.

As part of the international projects of St Petersburg University, the University is actively engaged in ensuring support to and strengthening the positions of the Russian language abroad. Since 2018, St Petersburg University has held the International Online Olympiad in Russian as a Foreign Language. Over 27,000 people from 150 countries of the world have taken part in the Olympiad. Since 2020, the University has been implementing online teaching of Russian as a foreign language in Greece, Mongolia, Venezuela, South Africa, Algeria, and Kenya. Today, 112 Russian language centres have been opened, which successfully operate in 50 countries of the world.

‘We are building a digital school of the new format, which is enriched with everything that traditional school is proud of. We have digital textbooks, curricula, specially trained teaching staff, a gym, cafes, classrooms, laboratories, and intensive feedback. This is how our school differs from all other formats that were in practice before or operate today in Russia. We strive not only to teach, but also to inspire, motivate, and encourage our students. We are ready to do everything to ensure that they have an interesting school life, interaction between classes and a high-quality education,’ said Elena Kazakova.