KADAPA: The Kadapa district administration has, so far, identified 12 students from the district who went to Ukraine for higher studies. While two of them have been brought back safely, parents of 10 other students are urging the government to bring their kids home soon. As the costs of education and living in Ukraine are far cheaper than in India, several prefer to send their children to Ukraine for medical education, parents of some of the Indian students in Ukraine said.
“Given the prohibitive cost of medical education here, particularly in private colleges, besides donations to get a seat, it is normal for the parents to send their children to Ukraine, where a five-year MBBS course can be done for Rs 50 lakh. If not for the present crisis, this issue would’ve never become a topic of discussion,” said a parent who didn’t wish to be named.
According to officials, the 12 students identified with the help of APNRTS are Sk Khaja Hussain, Masood Ibrahmi Sheik, Matli Divanshika, Bandaru Archana, Singaraju Vinay Kumar, Eswar Sai Santosh Sing, Kuppam Prasanna Kumar, Modem Anil Kumar, Lakshmi Ullanghi, G Praveen Kumar, Nagireddy Srikar Reddy, and Giriboyina Anurag.They are pursuing higher education at universities in Zaporizhzhia, Chernivtsi, Ivano-Frankivsk, Kharkiv and a few other Ukrainian cities. Of the 12, Prasanna Kumar and Gowthami have returned.
S Sudhakar Raju, father of Vinay Kumar, from Railway Koduru, said he has been in touch with his son since the war broke out. “He informed me that they have relocated him from the place where he was staying to the Romania border in a bus. At present, he is hiding in a bunker near the Romanian border. The Indian Embassy is providing him and others with him the much-needed support and we expect our son to return at the earliest.” Arifulla, the father of Masood Ibrahim, said the Russian and Ukrainian forces were fighting just kilometers away from where his son was hiding.