On June 14, 2013 the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Belarus and Representation of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in the Republic of Belarus conducted the Interuniversity Research and Methodology Seminar on Outstanding Issues of Training Process Arrangement and Refugee Education. This seminar was held in the framework of the international technical assistance project “Local Integration of Refugees in Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine (phase I)”, funded by the European Union and implemented by UNHCR in close cooperation with national governmental and non-governmental organizations.
Victor Yakzhik, Deputy Minister of Education of the Republic of Belarus, Srecko Neuman Snr. Reg. Local Integration Officer of UNHCR Regional Representation for Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine, Jean Yves Bouchardy, UNHCR Representative in Belarus, representatives of the leading higher educational institutions of the Republic of Belarus, and experts in the sphere of organization of the educational process of refugees from Ukraine and Moldova participated in the seminar.
During the seminar the discussion was held on the following issues: refugee integration with an emphases on issues of teaching official languages of the country of asylum, National refugee integration policy of the Republic of Belarus,outstanding issues of refugee education, ways of overcoming institutional, social and psychological differences during educational process, development of training materials for teaching Russian to refugees. Moreover, a lively discussion on establishing in Belarus of the system of certifying testing of foreign nationals in official languages took place.
