Belarus to host 10th SCO education ministers’ summit in June

Belarus will host the tenth meeting of education ministers from the member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in June 2026, the country’s Education Minister Andrey Ivanets announced during the final board meeting of the Ministry of Education.

Ivanets also noted that in the autumn, Minsk will host the 9th Congress of Teachers and Education Workers from the member states of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), according to Belarusian media.

Highlighting the growth of Belarus’s education sector, Ivanets said that exports of educational services reached a record $199 million over the past year.

“Over the past five years, we have effectively doubled this figure,” he said, pointing to the expansion of joint programs with Russia, China, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan. He added that more than half of these exports are from English-language programs, emphasising the need to continue developing them.

Looking ahead, Ivanets stressed that further development of international cooperation in 2026 will require diversification of Belarus’s educational exports, both in scale and structure.

He also highlighted the growing presence of Chinese students in Belarus, noting that nearly one in three foreign students in the country comes from China. Ivanets underscored the importance of expanding exports of in-demand educational services and providing comprehensive support to international students, covering the full process from selection to diploma issuance and apostille certification.

By Tamilla Hasanova