Emma Harden-Wolfson

Higher education in Central Asia blog

  • Gender gaps in higher education across Central Asia

    After a recent blog post I published on Women in higher education in Central Asia, I was approached by University World News to write more about why it is that some women in Central Asia – particularly those in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan – are doing so much better (better even than the world average) in getting to university than… Read more

  • How to pass exams in Kyrgyzstan

    In my most recent post, I passed on some tips on how to get into university in Kyrgyzstan. Today I’d like to share some more advice, this time on how to pass your university exams, courtesy of Ernist Nurmatov at Radio Azattyk [Liberty]. In an article entitled “Osh: did students get grades without going to… Read more

  • How to get into university in Kyrgyzstan

    Tuition fees were introduced in post-Soviet higher education systems further to the advice of international organizations such as the World Bank in the 1990s, as one way of relieving very constrained state budgets from the deteriorating economic situation most of the newly (re)independent states found themselves in further to the break-up of the Soviet Union. [Make of those… Read more

  • It’s hard to be a punk in Tajikistan (repost)

    Ostensibly about punk and heavy metal cultures in Tajikistan, the article I’m reposting today from the Institute for War and Peace Reporting also serves as a fascinating insight into the ways that individuals and states respond to change from the outside. Think about the conscious choices that individuals who have adopted punk or heavy metal are… Read more

  • From the sublime to the ridiculous, and everything in between: Ten defining moments of Congress 2016

    The big news in the Canadian academic world at the moment is Congress 2016 (on Twitter: #congressh), taking place right now at the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada. Congress – or to name it in full, the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences – is the annual gathering of 75 Canadian scholarly associations, with around 8,000 researchers, practitioners,… Read more

  • Higher education in the high mountains of Central Asia

    Regular blog readers will know that I am passionate about higher education and about Central Asia. You may also know that I have been following the trajectory of some of the region’s newest institutions with great interest, in order to better understand the motivations behind the creation of these universities and to observe what these institutions mean for the people… Read more