Fifth Meeting of the BRICS Countries’ Ministers of Education

14:08, July 7, 2017

As a result of the meeting, the members signed the Beijing Declaration, which had been designed at the meeting of Senior Officials on July 4th

On July 5^th, 2017, Beijing hosted the Fifth Meeting of the BRICS Countries’ Ministers of Education. The Russian delegation was headed by the Deputy Minister of Education and Science of the Russian Federation L. Ogorodova.

In her greeting speech, L. Ogorodova emphasized the role of the BRICS Network University in the development of educational cooperation between the BRICS countries. Today, the Network University is the only association of BRICS countries’ universities that is actually functioning. L. Ogorodova encouraged the Ministers to support this ambitious project.

China’s Minister of Education, Chen Baosheng, addressed the participants with a report called “Strengthening of Pragmatic Collaboration and Promotion of Joint Development”, where he highlighted the achievement of the PRC in the area of equal availability of high-quality education and spoke about the main points of possible collaboration between the BRICS countries in this field.

In response, the Ministers of Education of the BRICS countries told the audience about the activities of their Ministries aimed at organization of mutually beneficial cooperation. L. Ogorodova mentioned the collaborative work on the development of professional and technical education, the necessity of developing a comparable educational statistics, collaboration in the area of e-learning and other topics.

As a result of the meeting, the members signed the Beijing Declaration, which had been designed at the meeting of Senior Officials on July 4^th. The Declaration contains the encouragement to support the BRICS Network University and use it as the main platform for educational, scientific and innovation cooperation of universities, and recognition of the importance of professional education for the BRICS countries’ cooperation. The Chinese party proposed to organize a conference of educational researchers and a BRICS summer youth camp. South Africa invited the participants to the Third General Conference of the BRICS Network University in Cape Town, while the Russian party drew the participants’ attention to the conference “Global Economy and Innovation in BRICS Countries”, which is to take place in September 2017 in NRU HSE, Saint Petersburg.