Ukrainian universities’ Indian college students—numbering round 20,000—are watching an unsure future amid the raging conflict. While evacuation is a paramount concern for governments throughout the globe, the Russian invasion has thrown worldwide college students’ tutorial journeys out of kilter.
Ravi Kumar Koul, a study-abroad guide who has helped tons of of Indians with admissions to MBBS programs within the east European nation, advised indianexpress.com the scholars wouldn’t lose tutorial years, as a result of the National Medical Commission will enable them to be transferred to different universities.
“Students are being evacuated, and the situation in Ukraine is changing every second. The primary concern is getting the students back safely. The Indian government last week collected data of all Indian students enrolled in Ukraine via Google forms. If the situation gets better in the next couple of months, they can safely return to their universities. Otherwise other options will have to be explored,” mentioned Koul, who runs Admission Advisor, a consultancy in Ghaziabad.
Koul mentioned that college students of 1 Ukrainian college may very well be transferred both to different universities within the nation or to universities abroad. He suggested college students to make choices fastidiously.
“The situation is grim in the eastern part of Ukraine. If these students can travel back soon, they can look for transfers to universities in the western region of the country. Any government university would be willing to absorb these students, but they have to be careful because private universities would want to get them. The quality of education in private or semi-government universities is questionable as well as expensive,” Koul cautioned.
Akshay Chaturvedi, founding father of Leverage Edu, one other study-abroad consultancy, additionally mentioned the scholars have been left with solely two selections – both to get right of entry to a special Ukrainian college when the state of affairs improves or get transferred to a medical faculty in a special nation.
“Several countries have emphasised improving their healthcare infrastructure and started medical courses in the past five years. These students can gauge options in West Indies, the UK, Canada and Australia. While these options may be marginally more expensive than studying in Ukraine, they will yield a great return on investment in terms of post-study opportunities,” Chaturvedi mentioned.
A 25-year-old pupil from Chandigarh who had returned to VN Karazin Kharkiv National Medical University in August 2021 to finish her MBBS diploma advised indianexpress.com, “The universities have assured me that online classes will continue. I have spent six years working on my MBBS degree. The KROK 2 examination, which is a licensing examination and an obligatory part of state certification to be a doctor or a pharmacist, is supposed to be held on May 24, but it seems very unlikely. We don’t know what will happen.”
In February and March 2014, Russia invaded and annexed the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine. Back then, over 600 Indian MBBS college students enrolled in Crimean universities resembling Premiere State Medical University and Crimea State Medical University confronted related circumstances.
Koul mentioned, “In 2014, some college students selected to take the transfers and others determined to remain the place they have been. The Indian embassy had facilitated the switch of scholars enrolled within the universities within the areas affected by the annexation.
However, Chaturvedi known as the present disaster “very different” from what occurred in 2014. The majority of scholars didn’t come again to India in the course of the 2014 Crimean disaster, and simply over 500 college students needed to be managed. Hence transferring these college students to the jap area of Ukraine was a possible choice,” he mentioned.
According to Chaturvedi, the state of affairs might be extra complicated for fifth- or final-year MBBS college students as they require scientific coaching. “The Indian government will have to function as a study-abroad consultant to shift these students because inducting all of them into Indian medical schools is not possible due to the limited infrastructure. The Foreign Medical Graduates Examination (FMGE) can be advanced, and final-year students can be appointed on duty, but junior students will have to join other universities,” mentioned.
Dr Vishnu Venugopal was an MBBS pupil at Crimea State Medical University from 2013 to 2019 and was current within the nation in the course of the 2014 disaster. He mentioned that after the preliminary few days, courses have been carried out as common and so they have been requested to at all times carry their identification playing cards.
“The situation was tense but not violent. Coming back to India was not an affordable decision. Hence I was one of the students who stayed back in the same university, and everything was put under the Russian administration overnight. Over 50 per cent of students had taken transfers to different universities in Ukraine, but it was not an easy process as they struggled to get their documents in the middle of the semester,” mentioned the 28-year-old from Kerala’s Thrissur district. He works in Kochi now.
His classmate, 27-year-old Harsha Rai from Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh, was one of many college students who had shifted to a different college. “I had joined in 2013 and was just out of the foundation course where we were taught the Russian language. Suddenly, it was announced that Russia would take over. In the following days, we witnessed shortages of water, food, cash and even electricity. The Russian forces had blocked the airports and nobody could fly out. Eventually, the university moved under the Russian federation,” mentioned Rai, who had shifted to the Dnipropetrovsk State Medical Academy in Ukraine.
According to Rai, a number of Indian college students who approached the Indian embassy have been advised that no price needed to be paid at universities they have been transferred to, however the directives have been carried out in another way.
“The universities were not ready to clear our transfer and wanted to hold us back. It was not a seamless process. We had to pay $400-500 extra to the universities that absorbed us, and we never got any fee refund,” mentioned Rai, who cleared the FMGE in 2019 and works in India now.
