Every year, thousands of foreign educational institutions open their doors to applicants from abroad and make tremendous efforts to lure them to themselves. In the course are discounts, grants and even the opportunity to study for free. Such grant and scholarship offers are very popular with the student fraternity, which is not surprising in light of the high cost of studying abroad - financial assistance allows you to partially or fully transfer this burden to someone else's shoulders.
The changes in the world over the past two years have also affected this conservative sphere of our lives. About how the coronavirus madness and the introduction of numerous restrictions affected this area - in our today's material.
Increased competition
In 2020, in the first year, when the epidemic of the new coronavirus infection acquired a truly tragic character, the number of applications for scholarships and education programs abroad fell by an order of magnitude. Students and teachers, the administration of educational institutions "hung up" in a wait-and-see mode. While the former were trying to understand what was happening, the latter were engaged in the development of strategy and planning of actions in the changing conditions of the modern world.
Then the lion's share of students voluntarily or not very much stayed in their homeland to sit out the spasmodic increase in the incidence rate. But in 2021, despite all the new versions of the disease and depressing statistics, the number of people who applied for study, including Erasmus Mundus, increased by 200-300%.
Even programs with minimal competition in previous years have become very competitive. The burden on admission commissions has increased significantly, which affected the timing of decision-making - on average, they have shifted by several months.
Everything went online
Despite the coronavirus, higher education institutions are in no hurry to give up their scholarships. Despite the fact that some states, due to fears of spreading the infection, now do not allow people to cross the border and do not recruit students in person, the Internet comes to the rescue. Moreover, even where entry is allowed, its rules change dynamically, and the list of restrictions can be one today, and tomorrow it is strikingly different. In the United States, for example, there is a list of vaccines with which students are taken, but domestic ones are not included in it.
It is for this reason that various scholarship programs have been forced to look for answers to the tasks set on the Internet. The Chinese example is indicative here: full-time students retained financial support, but then were forced to leave for their homeland - and attend lectures remotely. Until they return to study in China, they will be deprived of financial assistance, but it will be provided again as soon as a person continues to study at one of the universities in the PRC.
Distance learning has allowed institutions to form larger groups. And some higher education institutions even decided to keep the possibility of distancing after the completion of the coronavirus epic.
About student support
Now in some jurisdictions there is a traffic light system: the authorities closely monitor the situation on the "corona" in various countries and apply color indices to them. The color depends on how severe the situation with the incidence in this country is. In total, there are three options - green, orange and red.
Such a system is used in the United Kingdom:
- students from green countries can come without any restrictions,
- yellow is required to pass tests,
- "Blushing" is given a long isolation in a quarantine hotel, and at their own expense: in the UK it will cost almost two thousand pounds, which is equivalent to 185,000 rubles.
Some universities in England and Scotland allocate money for student applicants to cover these costs, but, of course, not all. Other universities provide support only to active students who are unable to pay for tuition. The funds pay for the purchase of technical devices necessary for further study, personal protective equipment, masks and gloves, in some cases - respirators.
Prioritization of publications on the impact of COVID-19
Research related to medical and pharmaceutical research, the study of the impact of the new coronavirus infection on society, the sphere of economic, educational, tourist relations; travel and culture are trending. These publications began to be published much more quickly than before. If earlier between the submission of an article, its review and publication it took from 1.5 to 3 years, now it has become possible in a matter of months, provided that there is a direct connection with the Covid topic and its impact on a particular area.
