Emma Harden-Wolfson

Higher education in Central Asia blog

  • The future is still bright

    The world is a different place these days as COVID-19 spreads its wings in all directions (officially reaching Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan by the time of writing on March 18). When we look back on these unusual times, I think we will see that coronavirus achieved what no politician, activist, or movement has yet managed… Read more

  • International Women’s Day: Celebrating female success, still marching for progress

    8th March saw the annual marking of International Women’s Day (IWD), which is a formal opportunity to celebrate female success on the one hand, but also a time to lament the continued global persistence of male-dominated structures and norms, and to work on ways to reverse this situation. IWD has developed and gained prominence since… Read more

  • Academic freedom in Russia

    Somewhat beyond the Central Asian scope I normally cover, but a topic that is highly relevant around the former Soviet space is academic freedom. I recently listened to a very interesting podcast on the topic of academic freedom in Russia. The episode focussed on a series of recent events and interventions at the elite Higher… Read more

  • Financing higher education in Kyrgyzstan

    For a small country with a population of a little over 6 million, Kyrgyzstan has an awful lot of universities – 68 at last count. For comparison, Singapore (population 5.8m) has exactly half as many and El Salvador (identical population to Kyrgyzstan) has 26 universities. As with many countries in the former Soviet space, the… Read more

  • Going, going, gone: Kazakhstan’s Innovation University is shut down

    A swathe of regulations, rankings, mergers, acquistions, and threats of closure for poor quality universities typify the Kazakh government’s drive in recent years to increase and assure quality in its higher education system. The latest target of the quality movement is Innovation University, which had its operating licence removed in late January 2020 after two… Read more

  • You’re fired: 10 university heads lose their jobs in Uzbekistan

    It was not an auspicious Valentine’s day for ten of Uzbekistan’s university leaders this year, with several newspapers running a story with the tantalizing title ‘10 university Rectors lose their jobs in one day‘ on February 14. If previous leadership changes are anything to go by (see e.g. Tashkent State University of Law, Tashkent State… Read more