Emma Harden-Wolfson

Higher Education in Central Asia Blog (est. 2011)

  • Tashkent’s ‘most corrupt university’ has a new boss

    Tashkent’s ‘most corrupt university’ has a new boss

    Several weeks after news broke that the head of Tashkent’s ‘most corrupt university’ had been fired, a new appointee has taken up the mantle. Tashkent State University of Law (TSUL)’s Rector Yesemurat Kanyazov was fired not just from his university leadership position but also from his other job as Deputy Minister of Justice. The official… Read more

  • Recommended article – “Educational research in Central Asia: methodological and ethical dilemmas in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan” by Dilrabo Jonbekova

    Published in well rated peer-reviewed journal Compare, Dilrabo Jonbekova’s 2018 article examines the challenges and opportunities open to researchers of Central Asia, studying both ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ researcher perspectives (and the blurring of the lines between these two groups). Jonbekova, a faculty member at Nazarbayev University in Kazakhstan, is well placed for a study like this,… Read more

  • Most popular degrees in Tajikistan

    The results of this year’s university admission testing in Tajikistan (which, like in many other former Soviet countries, is now centralized) are now in. Over 100,000 higher education hopefuls took entrance exams in 2019, most for entrance to university. Around 10% were seeking admission to college i.e. the final two years of secondary education (usually… Read more

  • Head of Tashkent’s ‘most corrupt university’ fired

    Catching up on recent higher ed news, here’s a story from Uzbekistan that speaks both to the ongoing wave of education policy reforms in that country as well as to the persistence of corrupt practices in higher education. At the end of August 2019, the Rector (Vice-Chancellor) of Tashkent State University of Law (TSUL) Yesemurat… Read more

  • Политика в сфере высшего образования в Центральной Азии и Афганистане

    Мой отчет о политике в сфере высшего образования в Центральной Азии и Афганистане теперь доступен на русском языке. Его можно найти на сайте Университета Центральной Азии (заказчик проекта) илл скачать здесь. Огромное спасибо УЦА за перевод! If you prefer it in English, you can find my report on higher education policy in Central Asia and… Read more

  • Conceptualizing major change in higher education

    In my research on former Soviet higher education systems, the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 continues to feature prominently as a starting point for some of the subsequent shifts that have occurred in higher education (and in society at large). More recent changes such as the introduction of principles of the European Union’s… Read more