Expert: Our universities can survive by attracting foreign students
Every tenth student from the Republic of Moldova comes from outside the country, mostly from Romania, Israel and India, claims the economic expert Veaceslav Ioniță. He said that currently the number of students from Ukraine, Jordan and Syria has practically been reduced to zero.
According to the economist, by attracting young foreigners, universities in our country can survive, in the context in which the number of students in higher education has decreased by about three thousand. "In the Republic of Moldova, in 2010, we had about a thousand foreign students. I estimate that this year we will have around 5400 students. Basically, we have 10% foreign students. Why is this good? First, foreign students bring money. Currently, the revenues that the Republic of Moldova collects from foreign students amount to about 100 million dollars. Another factor is that in this way our universities can survive. At the moment when the number of children in our country decreases, at the moment when the children go abroad, what saves our universities are foreign students. We could quite easily increase the number of foreign students to at least 10,000", said Ioniță. Currently, there are 5,800 students in higher education institutions in the Republic of Moldova, which is the lowest level recorded in recent years.
