Baku, November 27, AZERTAC

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has received a delegation led by Minister of Education and Science of the Russian Federation Olga Vasilyeva.

The head of state expressed his confidence that the visit of Minister of Education and Science of the Russian Federation Olga Vasilyeva will be interesting, adding that there were many topics of discussion relating to cooperation in the fields of education and science. President Ilham Aliyev said the bilateral relations are successfully developing in various areas, including education.

The head of state pointed out that relations in the fields of education were traditional in nature. What is very important is that our countries have not only preserved, but even strengthened these traditions in both secondary and higher education over the last 25 years, President Ilham Aliyev said. The head of state said Azerbaijani students study at Russian educational institutions, emphasizing that conditions have already been created in Azerbaijan too for those who want to study at Russian universities. The President highlighted the successful activity of branches of Russian higher education institutions in Azerbaijan, adding that the Russian minister will have an opportunity to familiarize herself with this during her visit. President Ilham Aliyev expressed his confidence that the ministries of education will hold fruitful talks for strengthening the bilateral relations.

Minister of Education and Science of the Russian Federation Olga Vasilyeva said: “Thank you for giving me an opportunity to visit your beautiful country, beautiful city.”

Olga Vasilyeva underlined the significance of developing traditional cooperation in the field of education. She highlighted Azerbaijan-Russia ties in the field of secondary, higher and academic education, hailing the successful activity of the branches of Lomonosov Moscow State University and Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University in Baku. Touching upon the development of Russian language, Olga Vasilyeva described this as one of the factors bringing the two countries and nations closer to each other. She proposed opening a linguistic group at Lomonosov Moscow State University given the large number of schoolchildren studying at Russian language schools in Azerbaijan.

They underlined the importance of providing technical support for the teaching of Russian language in Azerbaijan and Azerbaijani language in those areas of the Russian Population that are densely populated by Azerbaijanis. The sides highlighted the importance of the forthcoming Baku conference of the Association of Russian-Azerbaijani Universities, and noted the significance of expanding cooperation among universities.

They also pointed out the necessity of conducting experience exchange in preparing specialists in a variety of areas, including agriculture.