Big-city universities to go remote as virus surges

The Moscow Times 05 December 2020

Russia’s Science and Higher Education Minister Valery Falkov said on Monday 30 November that universities in Moscow and St Petersburg will switch students to remote learning for two months to prevent the spread of coronavirus during the pandemic’s record-setting second wave, reports The Moscow Times.

“I signed an order yesterday switching the universities under the ministry’s jurisdiction in Moscow and St Petersburg to the remote learning format,” Falkov said, according to the RBC news website.

Falkov had said in October that Russian universities would switch to remote learning based on the epidemiological situations in their specific regions. Russia’s two largest cities are at the centre of the second wave of Russia’s COVID-19 outbreak with nearly one-third of the country’s 2.3 million infections.
Full report on The Moscow Times site

Meanwhile, Komsomolskaya Pravda has reported that higher education institutions in Russia will keep state-funded places for foreign students who cannot enter the Russian Federation due to quarantine measures nor study well enough remotely due to poor communication. The Ministry of Education and Science of Russia denied reports about the expulsion of foreign students amid distance learning, saying it has helped foreign students to organise distance learning.
Full report on the 24.kg site

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