Russian universities report ten-fold growth of students from CIS

DUSHANBE, June 20 (Itar-Tass) - The number of students from CIS
member-states annually enrolled to Russia's higher education institutions
increased ten-fold over the past ten years, Russian Education and Science
Minister Andrei Fursenko told the 18th CIS Education Ministers Conference
on Monday.
"In 2001 Russia's higher education institutions accepted 535 students
by quotas, this year we enroll 5,000. Over ten years we've registered a
five-fold increase. I think this deserves respect," he said.
"Studies of 20,000 students are financed by the Russian Federation,
while a total of 70,000 students from the CIS are studying in Russia," he
said.
He underlined that higher education institutions of CIS member-states
"did a huge amount of work" to boost cooperation.
"We expand exchanges of students, professors to better realize and
take into consideration our opportunities," Fursenko said. "This will be
one of the main instruments in our movement forward."