Cooperation between Ukraine and the Republic of Türkiye in the field of education is carried out on the basis of the Agreement on Cooperation between the Ministry of Education of Ukraine and the Ministry of National Education and the Council of Higher Education of the Republic of Türkiye, signed on 21 May 1998.
An important result of the development of cooperation with the Republic of Türkiye in the field of education was the signing in 2017 of the Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation in Higher Education between the HEC of the Republic of Türkiye and the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine during the visit of the Prime Minister and Minister of Education of Ukraine to the Republic of Türkiye on 14 March 2017. This Memorandum allowed to bring cooperation on training specialists in strategically important areas of nuclear technology, aviation and space to a new level, in particular, to launch the practice of issuing double diplomas of Ukrainian and Turkish universities in these areas.
Thus, in October 2019, the Protocol on the International Joint Master's Programme in Nuclear Energy was signed between the National Technical University of Ukraine "Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute" and Ankara University, and in December 2019, the Framework Agreement on Cooperation between the State Enterprise "State Scientific and Technical Centre for Nuclear and Radiation Safety" and the Institute for Nuclear Research of Ankara University.
The opening in March 2018 of the first in Türkiye speciality "Ukrainian Language and Literature" at the Department of Slavic Languages of Istanbul University deserves special attention. Currently, 90 students are studying in this speciality and 6 teachers are working.
Saturday schools operate in the cities of Ankara, Izmir, Antalya, Istanbul, Kusadasi, and Konya, and the Taras Shevchenko International Lyceum operates in Istanbul under the auspices of the Ukrainian Cultural Society.
During the visit of President Erdogan to Ukraine on 9 October 2017, a Memorandum of Understanding on cooperation between the Hennadii Udovenko Diplomatic Academy of Ukraine at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine and the Diplomatic Academy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Türkiye was signed, and regular internship programmes for Ukrainian diplomats at the Diplomatic Academy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkey were agreed upon. The internships took place only in 2018 and 2019. In subsequent years, due to the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, no internships took place.
Ukrainian students have the opportunity to enter Turkish universities and receive various degrees of education (bachelor's, master's, postgraduate) under the state programme "Turkish Scholarships". For more information: https://www.turkiyeburslari.gov.tr/.
Turkish citizens have the opportunity to receive education in Ukraine on state scholarships (5 bachelor's and master's degrees, 2 postgraduate degrees), which the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine has been providing since 2018. For the 2023-2024 academic year, 2 postgraduate students went to Ukraine to study under this programme.
Due to the war in Ukraine, cooperation between the universities under the Mevlana, Erasmus and Erasmus+ exchange programmes is currently suspended.
The most promising areas of cooperation between Ukraine and Türkiye are joint training of specialists in strategically important areas of nuclear energy, space and aviation technologies; further development of Ukrainian language teaching in Turkish universities and expansion of the representation of Ukrainian topics in Turkish expert circles, as well as intensification of bilateral contacts between leading universities of the two countries.