Educational programs remain central in U.S.-Russia collaboration

{***Educational programs remain central in U.S.-Russia collaboration***}

Educational exchange has always been a top priority in bilateral relations between the United States and Russia, and has played an important role in the “reset.” At the beginning of this year, U.S. Ambassador Michael McFaul and former Russian Education Minister Andrei Fursenko signed a U.S.-Russia Memorandum of Understanding for collaboration between the two countries on educational exchanges and related activities.

Statistically, the number of undergraduate and postgraduate students from both the American and Russian sides has been steadily increasing for the last decade, according to the most recent Open Doors report on international educational exchange issued annually by the Institute of International Education (IIE). For example, the number of Russian students in the U.S. in the 2010-2011 academic year was more than double what it had been in 2006-2007. There is also growth among American students studying in Russia, but it is not so robust: In the past four years, the total number of American students in Russia has increased by only about 100.

 “We need to get more Americans to study in Russia,” said Edward Roslof, head of the Moscow Representative Office of the International Institute of Education and director of the Fulbright Program in Russia. “The differences between our two countries are decreasing. We can and do work together to address the world’s problems. American students understand this and want to learn more about Russia. When they learn Russian and come to Russia, they fall in love with the people and culture and history.”

Zsofia Budai, a foreign service officer at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow noted that the number of American students studying Russia is increasing. “Anecdotally, we hear that Russian language and Russian area studies programs are popular among U.S. exchange students,” Budai said in an interview with Russia Profile. “For instance, 2009 saw more than 26,000 students enrolled in university-level Russian language courses in the United States, a number that has seen steady growth since 2002.”

According to Roslof, educational programs such as Fulbright remain “central” to U.S.-Russia cultural cooperation.  “We concentrate on helping Russians and Americans learn more about each other’s culture,” he said, “so our two largest programs – English Teaching Assistantship (ETA) and Foreign Language Teaching Assistantship (FLTA) – focus on language teaching.” While young Americans participate in ETA and come to Russia to assist the teaching of English at 36 different Russian institutions of higher education, their Russian counterparts take part in the FLTA program and go to US universities and liberal arts colleges to help teach Russian to American students.

“In the 2011-2012 academic year, we sent 40 FLTAs from Russia to the U.S.,” Roslof said.

These numbers could increase if there were more funding. While the United States and many European countries offer grants and exchange programs for Russian students to study abroad, Russia’s Education Ministry offers few funding opportunities for Western students interested in coming to Russia. The Fulbright Program, which is funded by the U.S. government, offers grants for Americans interested in studying in Russia. Seventy U.S. citizens came to Russia on Fulbright grants last year.

“I am actively exploring possibilities for co-funding of Fulbright awards by both the U.S. and Russian governments in order to strengthen relations,” Roslof said. “[But] the problem is not the lack of funding by the Russian government, per se. It is Russian laws related to budgets and appropriation of funds over multiple years. The Ministry of Education and Science gives funds to universities for mobility, but they must spend them in the same calendar year. The U.S. government needed to pass a special law (eventually known as the Fulbright Act) to solve this same problem. It is not a simple thing – the rules for awarding funds over several years are complicated.”

{***In their own words: Impact of the educational exchange***}

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