BRICS Education Ministers Meet in Kazan

The 11th Meeting of BRICS Education Ministers took place in Kazan on 11 June under the chairship of Russian Minister of Science and Higher Education Valery Falkov. Participants discussed priority areas of cooperation in the humanities and digitalization, mutual recognition of qualifications, and a fair system for ranking and evaluating BRICS universities.

The event was attended by Minister of Education of the UAE Ahmad Belhoul Al Falasi, Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research of Egypt Mohamed Ayman Ashour, Vice Minister of the Chinese Ministry of Education Chen Jie, and Iranian Deputy Minister of Science, Research and Technology Omid Rezaei-Far.

Falkov opened the meeting by thanking his foreign counterparts for all of their hard work in science and education and welcomed the partners who joined BRICS this year.

“This has been a truly historic year for BRICS. This is our first meeting since the expansion of the group. I am certain that our new members will contribute to the agenda and joint endeavours in ways that will benefit all of us. During the year of Russia’s BRICS Chairship, we continue to step up interaction, implement ongoing projects, and launch new initiatives. The steps we take today will serve as the foundation for new achievements,” he said.

During the meeting, participants endorsed a number of agreements and expanded priority areas for training within the BRICS Network University in addition to the planned increase of universities participating in the BRICS Network University project to 20 per country (currently 56 universities from Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa are participating in the project).

The participants agreed to establish a dedicated working group to study the issue of mutual recognition of qualifications.

Russian proposals to strengthen joint work on eco-literacy and launch international environmental and climate monitoring programmes for students within BRICS also gained support.

Russia is also developing conceptual documents for a pilot International BRICS Olympiad that would create new opportunities for talented youth from the BRICS countries.

The participants came to a mutual understanding on the importance of the humanities in the development of multicultural expertise and endorsed increasing interaction between universities and cultural institutions within BRICS.

The creation of a system for ranking and evaluating universities was discussed, with participants supporting an initiative to hold thematic seminars where experts could discuss the underlying principles and mechanisms of such an assessment. The first progress report will be presented at the BRICS University Rectors Forum at Lomonosov Moscow State University in October 2024.

The meeting ended with the adoption of the Declaration of the 11th Meeting of BRICS Education Ministers and the Protocol of Accession of Egypt, Iran, and the UAE to the Memorandum of Understanding on the Establishment of the BRICS Network University 2015.

The Roscongress Foundation manages the events of Russia’s BRICS Chairship.