MINISTRY OF EDUCATION OF THE REPUBLIC OF BELARUS

August 12, a press conference was held today at the National Press Center to discuss the results of the main stage of the 2026 admissions campaign for higher education institutions.

According to First Deputy Minister of Education of Belarus Alexander Bakhanovich, the admissions campaign was well-organized, in full compliance with the Admission Rules and other regulatory legal acts, and the most comfortable conditions were created for applicants. A key result was the 100% fulfillment of the admissions plan for the country's universities, making the 2026 campaign the most successful in recent years.

Overall, 46,700 students have already enrolled: 32,000 of whom will be studying at the expense of the state’s budget, and 14,700 on a fee-paying basis. In addition, 1,500 students (athletes, CIS citizens, and those applying for a second higher education) were enrolled in fee-paying places above the planned number.

Alexander Bakhanovich noted that the university admissions structure today is fully consistent with the structure of the national economy: every fourth applicant is a future engineer, and every tenth is a teacher, medical professional, or agricultural worker.

While traditional IT fields previously dominated, today applicants tend to choose specialties related to artificial intelligence technologies and neural network architecture. This is confirmed by the high passing scores (380-395) at all universities.

Measures taken at the state level to support rural workers and agricultural workers have significantly increased the prestige and popularity of agricultural professions. Admission to agricultural universities has increased by 350 people and has been fully completed. The increased popularity of engineering specialties is the result of systematic work to implement the concept of developing engineering education, close interaction between education and the real economy, and the development of engineering classes in schools and competence centers at universities.

High interest in pedagogy has been noted. At Belarusian State Pedagogical University, the competition for the "Natural Science Education" program was 8.8 applicants per place, and almost every third applicant scored over 300 points.
This year, 5,800 targeted students were admitted (almost every fifth full-time state-funded student). The largest number were in medical, pedagogical, and engineering specialties.

The number of applicants admitted without entrance examinations and without competition remains consistently high. This year, almost 7,000 such students (winners of international and national olympiads and competitions, medalists, holders of honors college diplomas, and top graduates of the National Children's Technology Park) were admitted.

Special attention was paid to the digitalization of the process. For the second year in a row, applicants were able to pre-register for document submission through their personal accounts on the RIKZ website. More than 22,000 people