Visit of the delegation of North Korean Ministry of Education to MSLU

On April 8, a delegation from the Ministry of Education of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, headed by Minister Mr. KIM Seung Doo, visited MSLU. Also at the meeting there were representative of the DPRK Embassy in Moscow Oh Song Guk, Deputy Director of the Department of International Cooperation of the Russian Ministry of Education and Science Nikolay Kudryavtsev and the chief expert of the Department Svetlana Skornyakova.

On behalf of MSLU, the guests were greeted by Rector Irina Kraeva, Vice-Rector for International Affairs Vladimir Storozhev, Head of the Department of International Cooperation and Internationalization Irina Shokina, Dean of the Faculty of Translation and Interpreting Ekaterina Pokholkova.

During the meeting, the parties discussed developing cooperation between MSLU and North Korean universities.

Currently, MSLU cooperates with the Pyongyang University of Foreign Studies. During the meeting, the minister conveyed a proposal from the University to update the cooperation agreement between our universities, signed in 2017. As part of the academic mobility program in 2019, a group of students from MSLU translation and interpreting department visited the Pyongyang University of Foreign Studies. The students said that they were delighted to visit Pyongyang. The renewal of the agreement between our universities will allow us to deepen our scientific and educational cooperation and continue the tradition of academic exchanges, which students, teachers and young scientists of Pyongyang Universityand MSLU will be able to take advantage of.

During the conversation, the minister proposed expanding contacts between MSLU and other universities in North Korea and, in particular, with the largest university in the country - Kim Il Sung University.

During the meeting, MsKrayeva told the guests that MSLU has been teaching foreign students for more than 60 years.

Currently there are 10 students from the DPRK studying at our university; the most popular majors are Translation and Translation Studies and Linguistics and Intercultural Communication. During the meeting, the rector of MSLU told the guests about other areas of training for foreign specialists, such as International Relations, Sociology, International Journalism, Information Security, etc.

Representatives of MSLU twice took part in organizing Russian language Olympiads in the DPRK. Now our rector proposed holding the Korean Language Olympiad at MSLU, with teachers from the DPRK serving as jury members.

It was proposed to jointly develop educational and methodological materials for teaching the Korean language, as well as to conduct online lectures by teachers of MSLU in Russian and Pyongyang Institute of Foreign Languages in Korean for students of MSLU and Pyongyang Institute of Foreign Languages, respectively.

At the end of the visit, the guests noted the high level of hospitality of MSLU. Both sides expressed hope for continued close cooperation, the implementation of joint plans, as well as intentions to cooperate in order to train highly qualified specialists for the DPRK.