On January 23, 2023, at the invitation of the Estonian Education and Youth Board (Harno), a Ukrainian delegation began a working visit to the Republic of Estonia within the framework of a project titled “Stairway to excellence: strengthening an effective and reliable higher education system in Ukraine”.

The purpose of the visit is to learn best practices for strengthening an effective and robust higher education system in Ukraine based on Estonian experience, in particular, to study the process of implementing e-learning in Estonian universities; discuss current educational and scientific issues and challenges related to russian aggression against Ukraine; exchange knowledge and experience with representatives of universities and research institutions of the Republic of Estonia.

State Secretary Serhii Zakharin, experts of the Ministry of Education and Science, representatives of Ukrainian higher education institutions met with Deputy Secretary General of the Ministry of Education and Research of the Republic of Estonia Renno Veinthal, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ukraine to the Republic of Estonia Mariana Betsa.

The parties discussed the state of Ukrainian education under martial law, the main challenges and needs in the field of education and science, as well as further expansion of Ukrainian-Estonian cooperation, participation in joint international projects and initiatives.

The Ukrainian delegation also briefed their colleagues on the current situation in the field of higher education in Ukraine.

The State Secretary of the Ministry of Education and Science also informed that this year, like a year before, admission exams to higher education institutions would be held in the format of a national multi-subject test as an alternative to the External Independent Testing.

“Due to the armed aggression of the russian federation, we will again apply last year’s experience of the admission campaign, which was successful and allowed applicants not only from regions with safer conditions, but also those who were in the temporarily occupied territories, in areas of active hostilities and abroad to become students of leading universities,” said Serhii Zakharin.

According to the State Secretary, in order to create the safest possible conditions for admission, applicants will take the test during one day for three hours with the possibility of interrupting the tasks in case of air alerts.