Currently, over 642 Ukrainian students are studying at Masaryk University, most of them at the Faculty of Arts (150) and the Faculty of Economics and Administration (120), followed by the Faculty of Informatics (103), the Faculty of Social Studies (78), the Faculty of Science (54) and the Faculty of Medicine (51). About half of them receive a scholarship from the university to help them cope with the difficult personal situation caused by the war. In addition, MU employs 12 academic and 42 non-academic staff from Ukraine, and a further 13 Ukrainians work with MU as independent contractors.
“Three years later, Masaryk University still flies the Ukrainian flag on the Rector’s Office building, a symbolic expression of support that also has a practical implications. Not only in the sense of concrete support for teachers, scientists and students in Ukraine and in Czechia, but also more general expressions of support and solidarity. It is precisely at this politically turbulent time, three years from Russia’s invasion that we wish for peace that preserves Ukraine’s sovereignty and political independence. We wish Ukraine a peace that will allow its independent politics, economy, education and culture to flourish,” says Jiří Hanuš, MU Vice-Rector for Academic and Cultural Affairs.
Scholarships help students overcome difficult personal situations
For the past three years, Masaryk University has been offering scholarships to Ukrainian students to support their studies. Some have already graduated. Twelve Ukrainian recipients received their diplomas last year, with seven more following this year. However, most of those admitted through the special procedure in the 2022/2023 academic year entered the Bachelor’s programme, so the main wave of graduations is expected in June this year.
One of the students who received a scholarship from Masaryk University is Andrii Samoilenko, a student at the Faculty of Economics and Administration who began studying in Brno in September 2021. “When the war in Ukraine began in February 2022, my parents lost their jobs and, due to government measures to combat capital flight, they could not even send me money for rent and food in Brno. MU helped me in this dire situation – without the special scholarship, I would not have been able to continue my studies. And even today I would probably not be studying at all without it, because studying is very time-consuming and it is difficult to find the right balance between work and school,” says the student from Ukraine.
The war has fundamentally changed the lives of Andrii and his family. His father works as a military doctor and helps treat wounded soldiers in Dnipro, while his mother lives in her hometown near Kyiv, almost 200 kilometres away. “It wasn’t until April that we were able to get together as a family for the first time in two years, for my father’s birthday. Neither my family nor I know what will happen in the future, and we don’t know when or how the war will develop or end. For me personally, the war has changed many things. Despite my previous life experiences where I had to act like an adult despite being quite young, it forced me to grow up even faster and become independent. It’s something few people want to talk about, but it is stressful when you don’t see your family as regularly as you used to and you haven’t been home for more than three years. On top of all that, you live in uncertainty every day and all you can do is concentrate on your work and your studies. But you always think of home,” adds the student.
MU has already taught fifty-four Czech language courses to almost 1,000 Ukrainian students
Andrii was one of the students who had already been studying at MU when the war started. Most Ukrainian students, however, did not join MU until September, when the academic year 2022/2023 started. Few of them spoke Czech at that time, so Masaryk University organised Czech adaptation courses before the start of the academic year to help students overcome the language barrier and make it easier for them to start their studies. Masaryk University opened its first courses in May 2022 and has continued teaching them ever since. Over the past three years, teachers from the Masaryk University Language Centre have taught a total of 980 Ukrainian students in 54 runs of the language course.
At the very beginning of the war, a student at the Faculty of Education, Eliška Syrová, joined in teaching the Czech language course and taught two of the 28 groups of students from May to August. “It was a great experience and I admired the students from Ukraine for how they handled the situation. I also met a lot of smart and talented students. For example, one of them is studying law and has taken 70 credits in his first semester. I was also very happy to see a journalism student who is now writing articles in Czech at a very good level. We still keep in touch,” says the student, who received a poster from her Ukrainian colleagues at the last lesson, full of photos, thanks and good wishes for the future.
As a result of Russian aggression, psychologist Sofiia Berezka was forced to leave her home. She found refuge at the Career Centre of Masaryk University, where she initially helped with the integration of Ukrainian students into life in the Czech Republic. Gradually, however, she expanded her psychological and career counselling to include courses on wellbeing, communication and presentation skills and today, after almost three years, she is running soft-skill courses not only in Ukrainian but also in Czech. In total, she has helped more than 600 male and female students. You can read more about her experience with teaching Ukrainians online in the M Magazine article.
MU’s activities on behalf of Ukraine featured in European Parliament video
There were a number of activities in which Masaryk University was involved in connection with the war on Ukraine. More than a thousand volunteers signed up to help through the MUNI HELPS Volunteer Centre, and more than 800 donors contributed CZK 1.4 million to the financial assistance organised by MU in support of Ukraine. The University also offered Ukrainian students, employees and their families the opportunity to live in its accommodation facilities, Czech interpreting services and psychological counselling. It also organised a material collection, a Concert for Ukraine and a number of other support events.
For its activities in support of Ukraine during the pandemic, Masaryk University received the Excellence in Internationalisation Award from the European Association for International Education (EAIE) in 2022. This is the second time that Masaryk University has received this award, one of the most important of its kind in Europe, having received it for the first time in 2012 when the EAIE first announced it.
Assistance to Ukraine continued last year, too. In April, MU welcomed a delegation of nearly 40 academic and non-academic staff from 10 Ukrainian universities who came to Brno to receive training in hybrid teaching. The Ukrainian delegation came to MU thanks to the newly established Digital University - Open Ukrainian Initiative (DigiUni) project, which has received a four-year, €4.9 million grant from the European Union. The aim of the initiative is to help Ukraine create a national online and distance learning platform for around 300 Ukrainian universities and a one-stop-shop where Ukrainian university students can access free courses in a wide range of educational fields, from medicine to philology. In addition to Masaryk University and Ukrainian universities, other universities from France, Spain, Poland, the Netherlands and Germany are involved in the creation of DigiUni.
The Digital University for Ukraine project also caught the attention of the European Parliament, which decided to make a video about DigiUni as part of a competition showcasing various EU-Ukraine partnership projects from all over Europe. The video was filmed at Masaryk University in the summer and features an in-depth interview about the DigiUni project with IT architect and lecturer Kamil Malinka, who coordinated the project for Masaryk University. Watch the full video here.
