Stay in the loop! Subscribe to our mailing list

Belarus: Bologna, we’re coming?

Belarus would like to join the Bologna Process. According to a Belarusian Telegraph Agency press release, the vice-rector of the Belarusian State University Mikhaul Zhuravkov stated that Belarus will renew its admission bid for 2015 and is confident that his country will become part of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA).

Already in 2011 Belarus applied for accession to the EHEA. Its bid, however, was rejected and taken off the agenda in March one month before the official Bologna Process ministerial summit on 26-27 April 2012 in Bucharest. Due to lack of academic freedom, institutional autonomy and student participation within higher education governance, Belarus did not meet the necessary requirements to join the EHEA. Yet, according to the Belarusian Telegraph Agency the main obstacles lie supposedly in the lack of English taught programmes at Belarusian universities.

Belarus has not yet officially renewed its accession bid, but should it do so it could at the earliest be considered at the next Bologna Process ministerial summit in 2015 in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia. 

Belarusian Telegraph Agency - Press release