State-Funded Study Abroad Program Delayed, Report Says

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – August 20, 2013) The Kremlin has held back a proposed program to give financial support to the most talented Russian students undertaking postgraduate degrees in top foreign universities, because there is no guarantee that the economy will benefit from the outlay, a news report said Tuesday.

The program was aimed at raising the standard of Russia’s workforce, but the presidential administration thought the project was still underdeveloped, especially in terms of proposing effective measures that could make students come home to work for at least three years.

In the end, the funds were redistributed to programs supporting the development of Russian language abroad, an unnamed government official told Kommersant.

The initiative, later dubbed “Global Education,” was put forward by then-President Dmitry Medvedev in 2010. It awarded 3,000 Russians who had been admitted by the top 300 internationally ranked universities with up to 1.5 million rubles ($45,500) in annual scholarships.

The proposed program was aimed at aspiring students who would increase the competitiveness of the Russian education and science, as well as the quality of management both in government and in high-tech companies.

But Kremlin officials have criticized the program for focusing too much on the development government officials, when it should be trying to help students specializing in sciences instead.

In addition, many experts predict that it will mostly be the offspring of government officials who benefit from the program.

The Kremlin also objected to the fact that there is no clear mechanism to ensure that graduates will eventually come back to Russia and contribute to its economy.

But Dmitry Peskov – ­ one of the project’s developers ­ – said that if a graduate doesn’t come back, he will have to pay back the funding with interest.

Given that the program will not be launched this year, students who have already applied to study next year will not be able to get government grants.