Students who fled Ukraine battling to continue their studies

Tunisian students who fled Ukrainian universities following the invasion of Ukraine by Russia have found themselves in academic limbo, struggling to receive recognition for their completed studies at home or in other countries.

When Russian tanks and missiles violated Ukraine sovereignty, Tunisian news media was filled with patriotic images of Tunisia’s President Kais Saied ordering an air rescue mission, followed by sentimental images of students arriving back in Tunis, cradling beloved pet cats as parents rushed to hug their children.

Tarek Alaoui, the president of the Association of the Tunisian Community in Ukraine, told University World News that he and his organisation had helped rescue 510 students. And, while they are now safe from the war, these students tell sad stories about what abandoning their university courses has meant.

Alaoui’s colleague in the association, a PhD candidate and doctor who was studying at the National Academy of Medical Sciences of Ukraine, based in Odessa, recalled that he was completely unprepared for Russia’s invasion.

Requesting anonymity, he said: “In the morning, everything was normal – shops were open and some Turkmenistani colleagues were planning to leave. Then I spent a night under sniper fire shooting over my house and the next morning I decided to leave with a friend.

“I took just 15 minutes to pack. I took only some clothes, some medical equipment, my diplomas and papers in a backpack before getting the bus to the Romanian border. A village we passed en route just a kilometre away came under bombardment while we waited.”

Even once at the border, he and his friend endured a 10-hour wait where, “a guard shoved the muzzle of a Kalashnikov rifle into my friend’s chest”.

He now finds himself an over-qualified refugee in Munich, Germany, and, unlike his Ukrainian colleagues, he has not been authorised to work in the German health service. Nor are there opportunities to work in France, even though (like most educated Tunisians), he speaks fluent French.

“In Ukraine, I had two more years of my PhD to go. Here, I’ve started learning German, but here in Germany, or even if I return to Tunisia, I have arrived at zero.”

Mocked on Facebook

Ahmed Habboubi, a second-year undergraduate medical student, also studying at the National Academy of Medical Sciences of Ukraine, in Odessa, fled to the Polish border by train where he waited for five days to cross the frontier.

During that time, he lost all his belongings, some refugees burning their luggage to stay warm, and suffered a leg injury, having been crushed in a crowd of refugees.

Rather than return home to Tunisia, he made his way to stay with his father’s cousins in Paris and has applied to join a medical school there. “Many of my friends who went back to Tunisia regret it,” he told University World News. “Many students and universities don’t want students who have studied at foreign universities to be integrated into the public system.”

Rim Djebali, a classmate of Habboubi, in Odessa, said she was, indeed, one student who regretted returning to Tunisia, after fleeing Odessa, having seen bombs fall on the city centre from a suburb and witnessing planes fighting in the skies above.

She and friends decided to escape and paid US$800 for a 60km taxi ride to the Moldova border, disrupted by checks from Ukraine police searching for Russians.

Having heaved her 30km suitcase across the border and returned home, she has spent time waiting to receive academic documents and lecturer notes to aid applications to enter Tunisian medical schools.

She is not optimistic about succeeding, noting that she and many fellow returnees have been demoralised by “mockery” from Tunisian home students on Facebook pages and groups, decrying and insulting overseas students.

“Many parents want their children to continue their studies here because of the war,” said Djebali, but, like Habboubi, she does not feel comfortable entering a system where she perceives the risk of open aggression by peers.

She understands the resentment, however: “Tunisians had to get very high scores in their BAC [the Tunisian Baccalaureate enables entry into university] to compete to get into [public] medical schools in Tunisia and they think we just pay for everything.”

She disagrees, though, arguing that Ukraine academic standards were more rigorous than in Tunisia.

Is reintegration into Tunisia possible?

One open letter published by a student association from the Faculty of medicine of Monastir (L’Organisations des Externes de la Faculté de Medecine de Monastir) illustrated these concerns. It said: “We refuse concretely the integration of Tunisian students who have returned from Ukraine into the faculty of medicine because that is, in effect, the privatisation of studies.”

Djebali said many medical faculties in Tunisia, after initial inquiries, said that they wanted the students to start a full course, with no credits for their abandoned Ukraine studies: “There are students who are in their fourth of fifth year,” she said, and, for them, starting over is financially impossible.

The PhD candidate and doctor who asked for anonymity explained that the perception that students studying overseas are just rich kids whose parents buy them their future is not true, and that families sacrifice a lot for their children: “Families have sold their houses, sold land, everything so that their son or daughter can get a good education,” he said.

“I worked in Saudi and sold my car so that I could pay for my specialist training and my PhD.”

Now he says that such investments in Ukraine higher education clearly have been a bad gamble and families will lose all this financial support if their child cannot complete their medical degree.

Many families in Tunisia are supported by the remittances sent back by relatives making a good living overseas, often because of studying at universities overseas.

Parents of returned students wanting their children to remain in Tunisia and continue their studies locally have been lobbying the government to provide a solution. They have also been protesting outside the higher education and research ministry and holding press conferences.

The secretary general of the General Union of Tunisian Students (l’Union Générale Tunisienne des Etudiants – UGTE) Houssem Boujarra told University World News that, although it, too, has lobbied for returned students to be reintegrated into Tunisian higher education, it argues that a system of assessment needs to be installed first: “We don't believe that students should pass immediately on to public university courses. We have appealed to the ministry of higher education to set up a test, particularly for the medical students, to make sure that they can be integrated into the public system.”

He said Tunisia should follow the Egyptian example of using reintegration tests. “About 20% to 25% of their students [returning from Ukraine] have been accepted into public higher education,” he said.

Requests from University World News for comment from the ministry about the prospects of reintegration or other related plans were not answered.

Many returned students want to get back to their studies in Ukraine, said Djebali: “It was a huge injustice to the Ukrainian people. They [the Russian forces] destroyed their homes and their lives. We just want the war to end so we can go back to normal.”

Joint medical training?

But, even if Ukraine fights Russia to a standstill or ejects the Russian military from the country, this may not be a solution, as many medical education facilities and hospitals in Ukraine have been destroyed by Russian bombs. As of 27 May, 4,031 civilians have been killed in Ukraine because of Russia’s invasion.

One solution being explored by the Association of the Tunisian Community in Ukraine, says Alaoui, is negotiating with the medical faculty of the University of Sfax, in central coastal Tunisia, and the National Academy of Medical Sciences of Ukraine, to develop a joint medical training programme.

The proposed cooperation project would provide students with the same curriculum and assessment process undertaken in Odessa, but in the safety of Tunisia.

This would enable them to secure an Odessa medical degree, which is recognised in many European countries and help students to later pursue specialities such as neurology.

Alaoui, himself, has had to flee Ukraine, where he undertook specialist training in ophthalmology, completing his PhD at the academy and is currently working in Vienna, Austria.

He said that the programme should be opened out, not just to Tunisian students but to students from other African countries that previously attended the Ukraine national academy.

The Ukrainian Embassy in Tunis said that, while most cooperation programmes are on hold, this project seems to be making some progress towards realisation.

“Currently we are in the process of coordinating the agreement with the dean of the University of Sfax,” said a spokesperson.

He added that the embassy also needs the support and approval from the Higher Education and Scientific Research Ministry in Tunis to activate the project.