First Foreign University Opens in Turkmenistan

Ashgabat, 1 September 2008 (nCa) --- In a historic move, the first foreign university opened its doors for students Sunday in Turkmenistan.

The branch of the I M Gubkin oil and gas university has been authorized to operate in Turkmenistan under a presidential decree that was signed on 30 Aug.

The university will be temporarily housed in the premises of the polytechnic institute but in a year or two it is expected to get its own facilities.

The ministry of education of Turkmenistan will provide assistance and supervision services to facilitate smooth the university. Deputy prime ministers Khydr Saparliev and Tachberdy Tagiev have been asked to exercise personal supervision

The university has accepted students for the academic year 2008-9. Professor V I Darischev has taken over as the first pro-rector of the university.

Education is one of the fields where Turkmenistan is closely cooperating with Russia.

More than 250 students will go on scholarship to Russia this year, mostly to professional institutions of higher learning. The Russian side is footing the bill for 100 students and the rest are being financed by the various organizations and entities in Turkmenistan. Some 35 universities and institutes of Russia are already hosting Turkmen students.

The universities that are training the oil and gas specialists of Turkmenistan are: I M Gubkin oil and gas university, Tyumen oil and gas university, Ufa state university for petro technology, Kazan state technical university, Moscow state technical university, Moscow state mining university and Golgograd technical university.

Turkmen students are studying in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Ulyanovsk, Voronezh, Belgorod, Irkutsk, Yaroslav, Kazan and Astrakhan.

Besides the oil and gas related disciplines, the Turkmen students are mostly studying information technology, agriculture, architecture, construction, medicine, economy, finance, and marine fisheries.