"For us this is a disaster"

What is happening with Donetsk and Lugansk Universities: Report "Elephant"

Due to the conflict in the east of Ukraine, universities of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions were between two lights: Kyiv insists on the immediate evacuation of universities outside the self-proclaimed people's republics, separatist governments require resuming training as quickly as possible. In the spring, the rectors of many educational institutions announced the support of Ukraine and took part of the personnel, after which “folk rectors” appeared at the institutes. Many universities actually split into two parts; The gap between them is more and more every day, says journalist Maxim Butchenko in his report on the “elephant”.

An example of such a division is the Lugansk State Medical University. His departments moved from the conflict zone to Lisichansk, Starobelsk, Rubezhnoye and Severodonetsk; In a new place, 65 teachers agreed to work. 1,200 students from two thousand studied at LGMU left them before the conflict. The rest of the institute has passed under the jurisdiction of the self -proclaimed Lugansk People's Republic. The university resumed the work on October 15, 250 students were enrolled in the first year, according to the LPR.

The problems that have moved to Ukraine have, mainly organizational, the remaining - fundamental, writes Butchenko, it is not clear which system of education that resumed work universities will exist - Russian, Ukrainian or their own. According to the Minister of Education of the LPR Lesya Lapteva, the republic managed to agree with Russia to issue Russian diplomas and certificates. How it will work in practice is unclear.

Russian legislation does not allow students to issue diplomas to students who have graduated from foreign universities; To solve this problem, it is necessary to register Lugansk and Donetsk universities as branches of Russian. There are no information about such intentions and terms of possible accession. Most likely, Butchenko believes, most universities in the territory of the LPR and the DPR will be closed, and the separatist authorities will concentrate on financing a couple of universities.

“For us, this is a disaster, everything that has been built for years, decades, collapsed. What will happen to the material base? Laboratories? Scientific works? No one can answer, ”says the elderly Donetsk, who does not call his name and surname for security reasons.

Elephant