NAFSA (National Association for Foreign Student Affairs) was founded in 1948 as the National association of foreign students’ consultants for the professional development of staff education in the United States, responsible for helping students from other countries. After World War II, they were especially numerous: about 25,000 students came to study at American colleges and universities. The Association included universities, government units and private organizations, whose number was increasing every year. Now it includes more than 10,000 representatives of state and public organizations, research centers, international and national corporations from more than 150 countries.
The NAFSA goal is to develop international education, expand exchange education opportunities, creating links between the countries.
"We shouldn't solve the education problems by simply increasing the number of educational institutions. It would be better to think about the improvement of the teaching quality in the existing institutions. Nowadays a quality education is international. That is why we continue to develop and support the right of students to choose another country for higher education obtaining, learning a foreign language, exploring world culture. Our students should get skills that will help to solve various problems, and they need teachers who are aware of the importance of international cooperation and training; these people gathered here, at the NAFSA-2015," Arne Duncan says, the US Secretary of Education.
New horizons in education were the conference theme this year. People of this area offer opportunities of new technologies for the organization of the learning process. Such areas as the cross-cultural and joint education develop rapidly. Modern students can learn in three or more countries over the years of learning, get a degree at several universities simultaneously. Horizons in the field of international education are really wide, and the key to success, according to many experts, lies in the application of innovative practices, strategies and solutions.
At the NAFSA exhibition Russia was represented by higher education institutions involved in the Project 5-100. For the first time such a large delegation from Russia, including both representatives of educational institutions and Project 5-100, and employees of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, visited this famous event. In its exhibition space universities talked about international programs, were giving presentations and establishing new contacts.
"The exhibition of the Association of International Educators is a good chance to meet with friendly universities once again. The schedule of meetings with our numerous American and European partners is planned really precisely. Within NAFSA we already managed to modify an application for a grant with The University of Arizona (Tucson) and improve the double degree program with the University of Rochester, where our students are already trained. In 2015, the Association has gathered about 11,500 people, and participation in such a major event, of course, is important and useful for our university, as well as for higher education in Russia as a whole," Daria Kozlova says, the head of the ITMO University International Development and Partnership Institute.
Project 5-100 organized the Russia Goes Global event within the framework of NAFSA, which is an informal party and assumes familiarity with modern Russia - education, geography, culinary traditions and other peculiarities of the country in multimedia form.