On 7 November 2014, Lesya Ukrainka Eastern European National University started a new époque of collaboration with foreign institutions of higher education – the Ukrainian-Baltic cooperation. Thus, a round table was held in the library EENU, which was dedicated to the issue of “Ukrainian-Baltic cooperation in higher education”. The participants of the round table included vice-rectors and scientists from higher educational institutions from Lithuania, Poland, Sweden and Ukraine.
After the round table Rector of EENU Igor Kotsan had a working meeting with the honoured guests, Gudrun Paulsdottir (Ex-president of the European Association for International Education, the Head of the Research and Development “eGovlab”, University of Stockholm (Stockholm, Sweden), Richard Bonner (Member of the Board "Skorokhod Foundation", professor at Mälardalen University (Sweden), Natalia Mazheykene (Vice-Rector of Vytautas Magnus University (VMU) (Kaunas, Lithuania).
Igor Kotsan shared the information about EENU and stressed that the Association signed between EU and Ukraine has to be realized through the institutions of higher education, and through Lesya Ukrainka Eastern European National University, in particular. Such cooperation is extremely important nowadays, so the Rector also expressed expectation for both educational-scientific joint work, as well as for collaboration in the sphere of sport and arts.
Igor Kotsan mentioned that students of EENU are educated well enough to be ready for the job in European institutions because part of their courses is conducted by the guest lectures and professors from abroad. The university is also interested in the opportunity for its professors to raise their qualification in the foreign institutions.
The Rector told the guests about the Institute of Foreign Philology, where English, German and French are studied and about the Centre of the Swedish Language. Igor Kotsan mentioned that teaching Scandinavian languages and Lithuaninan would be an interesting and important perspective for the students’ development.
The meeting closed with the certitude, expressed by Igor Kotsan, that everything best will be taken from the cooperation with Vytautas Magnus University (VMU) (Kaunas, Lithuania) and the Board "Skorokhod Foundation", which is headed by Tetiana Mamchich (Associate Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science of Lesya Ukrainka Eastern National University) for the integration of EENU into the European system of education.
Inna MOHILEVSKA
Translated by Alla GNATIUK