The agreement with the United Arab Emirates
The Minister of Science and Higher Education, Professor Lena Kolarska-Bobińska, signed on 8th June an agreement on cooperation in science and higher education with the United Arab Emirates.
"This is another such agreement with an Arab country, very interested in cooperation with Polish universities. So far, we have established cooperation with the Sultanate of Oman. The negotiations on similar agreements are conducted with Qatar and Kuwait. Polish universities are opening up to the world and have enormous potential. They offer foreign students the high quality of teaching, attractive courses conducted in English and competitive cost of studying. In recent years, young people from all over the world have been more willing to choose our colleges to study", emphasized Professor Lena Kolarska-Bobińska. '
"The Ministry of Science has been consistently working on enhancing internationalization of Polish universities. This is one of the priorities of my department. As part of the new programme called 'Universities of the Future', Polish colleges will receive EUR 75 million to cover financial cost of international accreditation, bring lecturers from abroad, and conduct classes in foreign languages", said Minister Kolarska-Bobińska.
46,100 foreign students are currently studying in Poland. Compared to the 2013/2014 academic year, their number has increased by more than 10,000. Students from the world, however, make up only 3.1% of a total number of students; the average for the OECD countries is 6.9 %. Presently, 800 students from Arab countries are studying at all Polish universities, only five of them come from the United Arab Emirates (UAE). "We have asked Polish educational and cultural institutions to promote our universities in that region", said Minister Lena Kolarska-Bobińska. The UAE citizens are interested in studying abroad, which is why the Ministry of Science and Higher Education encourages cooperation between Poland and the Emirates in the area of higher education and science. The point is to increase recognition of Polish universities in the UAE and attract students from the Emirates. Last year, the Ministry launched the Arabic language version of the www.go-poland.pl website.
The agreement on cooperation was signed by Hamdan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, the Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research of the UAE.
