Inauguration of the 7th academic year in the UwB’s Vilnius branch

This Saturday, The House of Polish Culture in Vilnius has hosted the celebration of the inauguration of the seventh academic year in the Faculty of Economics and Informatics of the University of Bialystok’s branch in Vilnius.

This year the branch in Vilnius has admitted 102 students, 72 of whom were accepted to the course in Economics and 30 in Informatics.

‘Europe’s current problem is the population decline and high mobility among the youth. This year this problem has touched us as well. We had less candidates than a year ago and a competition on the education market has been much higher than in recent years’ – said Dr. Jarosław Wołkonowski, dean of the Faculty of Economics and Informatics at the University of Bialystok’s branch in Vilnius.

There are 450 students currently enrolled in the Vilnius branch. This is the same number as in the previous academic year.

During the inauguration of the year 2013/2014 the matriculation of freshmen took place. First-year students who earned the highest scores in the recruitment process took the oath.

Dr. Jerzy Halicki, vice-rector of the Vilnius branch, wished the students bright future and the dean of the Faculty of Economics and Management, Professor Henryk Wnorowski gave the first lecture of this academic year entitled ‘Entrepreneurship – a path to wealth and happiness.’

Other distinguished guests also attended the celebration, including Consul General of Poland Stanisław Cygnarowski as well as Vice-Minister of Education and Science of the Republic of Lithuania Edyta Tamošiūnaitė, who gave her best wishes to all academic teachers at the occasion of the World’s Teachers Day celebrated across the world on the 5^th of October. She also wished the students a very good year.

The University of Bialystok greatly supports its staff in academic research. Due to numerous studies and scholarly publications, the institution has gained the category B in the process of parameterization conducted by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Poland. Category B allows for financing research from the budget funds.

304 students have already graduated from the UwB’s branch in Vilnius. ‘Most of our graduates work in the Vilnius Region and we are very content with this. They run transport companies, shops, beauty salons, they work in finance or as accountants for local authorities in the Vilnius City and Šalčininkai District Municipalities, some of them have their own businesses. It should also be noticed that many of our graduates continue higher education at the master degree in universities in Poland and Lithuania’ – said the dean.

The closest of the branch’s aims is the opening of master studies in Economics. ‘According to our survey among the graduates there is a high number of those interested in continuing further education at the master level’ – the dean continued.

However, the biggest problem of the branch is its lack of headquarters.

Source: http://kurierwilenski.lt/2013/10/04/zaglada-zydow-w-ejszyszkach/

Tłumaczenie by Awa Ratajczak w ramach praktyk w Europejskiej Fundacji Praw Człowieka, www.efhr.eu. Translated by Awa Ratajczak within the framework of a traineeship programme of the European Foundation of Human Rights, www.efhr.eu.