Stalin asks PM Modi to ensure academic progress of Ukraine returnees can continue

With students who returned from Ukraine worried about their future, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin on Monday nudged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to “find a way out” to enable them to continue their studies in medical colleges in the country.

In a letter to Modi, Stalin said the students should be allowed to continue their studies from the stage at which the same was interrupted in Ukraine due to the war. The letter came as thousands of students who went to pursue their medical dreams in Ukraine due to a variety of factors, including high fees in Indian institutions, return from the war-torn nation with a question mark on the future of their studies.

Over 2,000 students from Tamil Nadu are pursuing medicine in various universities across Ukraine. While 1,200 of them have returned home so far, efforts are on to rescue and bring back the remaining students. In the letter, Stalin acknowledged the efforts taken by the Union Government in bringing back thousands of students caught in the conflict raging between Ukraine and Russia.

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Given the current unprecedented situation in Ukraine, Stalin said, it may not be practically possible for these medical students to return to their colleges in Ukraine, to continue their studies. The uncertainty is likely to prevail even after the cessation of hostilities and till the restoration of normalcy in their Universities, he said.

“I would therefore request your urgent intervention in taking up this issue with the National Medical Commission and the relevant Ministries. They may be directed to immediately find a way out to enable the affected students to continue their studies in medical colleges in India from the stage from which their studies in Ukraine have been disrupted,” Stalin said.

He also gave an assurance that the Tamil Nadu Government will offer “unstinted support” to all the efforts taken by the Centre in this regard. Tamil Nadu has the highest number of government medical colleges in the country, yet students from the state travel to far-away countries like Ukraine to pursue medicine.

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