Friendship University

L. Tachalin, Friendship University: Two Years Old. May 1962

 

The Asian, African and Latin American countries need college-trained personnel to carry through economic and cultural development and to build a new life. With training facilities at home deplorably short so far, knowledge has to be acquired abroad.

Young people of Africa, Asia and Latin America who wanted a higher education and could afford it set out for London, Paris, Heidelberg or New York. It took a lot of money. Two years ago a new address appeared. Thousands of letters from all parts of the world bore it: “Patrice Lumumba Friendship University, Moscow, USSR.” This institution is unique among the higher schools of the world.

“It was very hard at first. On all sides I heard a language I did not understand at all. I thought I would never be able to learn it. But in three months, with the help of the teachers, I could already express myself in Russian and understand it when spoken. Now I am a student in the department of agriculture. The first semester has ended, the first exams have been passed.”

Thus writes G. D. Senasinghe, a first-year student from Ceylon, in his department’s newspaper, “Agrobiologist.”

Patrice Lumumba University was founded in 1960 with the chief object of helping the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America to train their own specialists. A non-governmental institution, it is sponsored by such organizations as the Union of Soviet Societies for Friendship and Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries, the Central Council of Trade Unions and the Soviet Afro-Asian Solidarity Committee.

The first applicants came to Moscow two years ago (1960). Their fare to the USSR was paid by the University. Tuition at the University is free. Besides, the students are given a monthly grant, free textbooks, free medical treatment and free accommodation at holiday homes and health resorts.

Some 1,300 young men and women from seventy-six countries are enrolled in the University’s seven departments. They spend the first year in the preparatory department, studying Russian and subjects from the secondary school course. Students who have not had a regular school education go through a somewhat longer preparatory period. Then the student chooses which department he wishes to enter: engineering, history and philology, agriculture, medicine, physical-mathematical and natural sciences, economics and law. The course is five years for medical students and four years for the others.

What demands are made of the student? Only one: that he study diligently. That is what Premier Khrushchev said in his speech at the opening of the University. “Study diligently, don’t waste a single day, don’t miss a single opportunity to acquire knowledge, to study science and engineering.”

The University has an experienced teaching staff. Among the professors and assistant professors there are twenty-three holding Doctor’s degrees and seventy with Candidate’s degrees. As the students advance into the senior years the teaching staff will be enlarged considerably. Professors will be invited from abroad to lecture and conduct seminars. A post-graduate department is to be opened.

Lectures and classes start at nine in the morning. As a rule, the students have three subjects a day. Here is a day’s schedule in the engineering department:

9 to 10:45 (with 10-mint break): Technology of metals.
Classroom work in groups of 15 to 20.
11 to 12:45 (with 10-mint break): Higher mathematics.
13 to 14:45 (with 10-mint break): Russian Lecture, to audience of 100 to 150.
Classes of three or four students.

At three in the afternoon classes end, but many students stay on in the University buildings. Some visit the library (which already has more than 80,000 volumes), others go to study rooms or laboratories (where they will always find a teacher to give them any help they need). We came across Clovis Vilanova, a student from Brazil, of the physics and mathematics department, finishing a technical drawing. “My ambition,” he told us in excellent Russian, “is to become a physicist.” He has been in Moscow a year and a half. “Naturally, I’m very pleased. Brazil has few specialists in physics.”

Perhaps the most characteristic thing about the students at Friendship University is their zeal, one might even say their obsession, for acquiring knowledge. They sit up late in the laboratories. The experimental workshops are never empty; virtually a machine-building factory in miniature, they have the facilities for building a motor car, if need be.

Another feature is that the students do not limit their interests to any narrow specialty, bearing in mind that their underdeveloped countries need personnel with versatile knowledge and skills.

One should not get the impression, however, that the students are bookworms interested only in lectures and seminars. They go in for sports, attend the theatre and visit recreation centers. They spend their winter and summer vacations in a variety of ways. Bsaes Mohamed Abdel-majid, a medical student from Tunisia, made a two-week trip with friends to the Ukrainian city of Kharkov last winter. He was greatly impressed by what he saw in one of Kharkov’s largest factories, at the Polytechnic Institute, and in the city in general. Young Kharkovites showed him about; together with them he spent some of the time relaxing in the surrounding countryside. Meanwhile, at holiday homes near Moscow, several dozen of Mohamed’s colleagues were playing table tennis, learning to ski, watching television, and dancing.

The students have founded associations of compatriots-for example, the Association of Latin American Students-and regional organizations. Yet all the young people proudly call themselves Muscovites, and they have made many friends in the city’s factories, offices and schools.

There are various, self-government bodies: the councils of the University, the departments, the hostels and the club, and the board of the athletics society. The councils, elected bodies made up of students and members of the teaching staff, decide on matters relating to studies and recreation. For instance, on the initiative of the council of the physical-mathematics department it has been decided to set up a science club.

The spirit of internationalism is something not included in the University curriculum but the students learn it fast. The young people from different countries and of different races are like brothers. “Patrice Lumumba Friendship University is a good instrument of mutual understanding between nations of the world,” says Tamrat Endailalu of Ethiopia, a future geologist.

What prospects lie ahead?

The number of applicants is tremendous. As many as 43,000 applications were filed for the 500 places available in 1960. A new complex of University buildings is in the blueprint stage. A student town-an international town of learning-will arise.

In a few years the first graduates will go out into life with their Friendship University diplomas.

Source: Soviet Union, No. 146 (1962), p. 33.

 

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