Representatives from Russia’s State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom and Russian universities have visited major Egyptian universities to explore means to employ Egyptians at the Dabaa nuclear power plant, Sobolev Alexander, the Russian Ministry of Education and Science’s Department of State Policy director, told Ahram Online.

"The visit aimed at developing cooperation between Russian and Egyptian educational institutions, mainly to discuss opportunities for Egyptian engineering students to receive relevant education and training based on joint Egyptian-Russian programmes so that the graduates could seek employment with El-Dabaa NPP in the future," he said.

Rosatom has announced that work on El-Dabaa, situated west of Alexandria, will start in December.

The Russian delegation gave a number of presentations at the Russian Centre for Culture and Science in Cairo, where they spoke about approaches to human resources planning and development that Rosatom offers its partners, and opportunities Russian educational institutions can provide for future cooperation.

"During the visit, Alexandria University and MEPhi signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) that opens doors for future mutual nuclear research and development programmes. The document also enables both universities to share infrastructure capabilities and R&D results and methodologies while promoting student exchange programs," he said.

"Russian higher education institutions – including Kazan Federal University (KFU), MISiS, HSE, and Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University (SPbPU) – are developing cooperation in science and education with universities, scientific centres, and cultural institutions of Egypt, especially Tabbin Institute for Metallurgical Studies, the Central Metallurgical Research and Development Institute, Cairo University, the National Research Centre of Egypt, Damanhour University, and other institutions," Alexander said.

"Tabbin Institute for Metallurgical Studies was set up by USSR specialists and MISiS academic staff. Students and postgraduate students studying metallurgy at MISiS had their research internship at Tabbin Institute of Metallurgical Studies. In 2005, there were four students; in 2009, there were 10; in 2016 there was one postgraduate student (assigned to the special stipend of the President of the Russian Federation: Presidential Study Abroad Scholarship)."

"To attract talented students and postgraduates, leading Russian universities organise presentations and road shows. Such events have been organised by MEPhI, South Ural State University, the KFU, and Ural Federal Universities in March 2017. Russian delegates held meetings with management and professors of Egyptian universities, learned about key educational programmes, visited laboratories and other university research facilities, and discussed future areas of the Egyptian-Russian cooperation,” Alexander said.

“The implementation of work in Egypt has enabled Samara University to increase its pool of partners. Through these partners it became possible to attract students from Egypt to study at Samara University.”