Iraqi minister discusses sending students to BME on state scholarships

An Iraqi government delegation visited BME on Wednesday. The Iraqi state plans to provide scholarships for 5,000 local students per year to study abroad, and Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research Naeem Al-Aboudi discussed the BME's participation in the programme with Rector Charaf Hassan. Engineering, information technology and science courses are expected to play a prominent role in the Iraqi-Hungarian higher education cooperation making BME a strategic partner in the negotiations.

At the meeting, Charaf Hassan introduced the university, and then András Nemeslaki, Deputy International Rector, and Gergely László Vigh, Director of the Directorate of Foreign Language Education, presented BME's trainings and international admission system. It was mentioned that the Stipendium Hungaricum programme, which has been in operation for 10 years, currently has 80 Iraqi students (mostly doctoral ones) studying at the BME, anf they are performing above average.

According to Charaf Hassan, there is potential for cooperation in many fields, from mechatronics to robotics and artificial intelligence to geographic information. Concerning joint training programmes, the Iraqi partners were most interested in mechatronics, energy, ICT and nuclear energy competences. They mentioned that there are many private universities in the country that would send students to the BME for specialisation.

Members of the delegation, including Hazeem Baqer Taher, Head of the Cultural Relations Department, Hasanen Mohammed, Chief of Cabinet, and Majid Shannoon Khalaf, Liaison Officer of the International Atomic Energy Agency, visited the laboratory for the development of artificial intelligence, and the Minister also had a discussion and a photo taken with Iraqi PhD students from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology.

Rector's Office, Communications Directorate