Press releases

MINSK, 15 November (BelTA) - Belarus is the CIS leader in terms of the number of students in higher education institutions per 10,000 residents, BelTA learned from the report of the Belarusian Statistics Committee timed to the International Students' Day (17 November).

In the 2016/2017 academic year, 51 Belarusian higher education institutions had 313,000 students enrolled in their programs. Belarus boasted the highest ratio in the CIS, which stood at 330 students per 10,000 population. The country is followed by (listed in descending order): Ukraine, Armenia, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Moldova, and Azerbaijan.

As of today, there are 34 universities, 9 academies, and 8 institutes in Belarus, most of them are state-owned. They train specialists in 15 major education fields that include over 400 disciplines and specialties. As many as 172,600 intramural, 139,200 extramural, and 1,400 night-class students study in Belarus today. Female students slightly outnumber male students.

Programs in law and economics remain the most popular (one-third of the total number of students). Other sought-after programs are related with technology (some 20% of students enrolled), pedagogy (10%), agriculture (8%), and medicine (7%).

In the 2016/2017 academic year, the Belarusian higher education institutions enrolled over 15,000 foreign students (5% of the total number of students). Students from the CIS accounted for 73% of all the students, China and Iran – 5% each, Nigeria – 3.5%, Lebanon and Sri Lanka – 1.9% each, India – 1.5%, Iraq – 1.1%.

The state rewards young people who want to get higher education. A total of 91,000 students, or every second intramural student, got scholarships in the 2016/2017 academic year.