Emma Harden-Wolfson

Higher Education in Central Asia Blog (est. 2011)

  • Women in higher education in Central Asia

    Did you know that as far back as the 1970s – an era when most of Europe and North America was only just waking up to the idea of mass higher education – that more women than men were enrolled in universities in the Central Asian republics of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan? And did you also know that these impressively… Read more

  • Three dilemmas for students in Kazakhstan

    Today’s post draws on the findings of an April 2016 research report by the German Friedrich Ebert Stiftung and Kazakh research institute Public Opinion, Youth of Central Asia: Kazakhstan [ru only]. Researchers interviewed 1,000 young people aged 14-28 in different regions of Kazakhstan to obtain their views on politics, values, education, family, sex, religion and leisure using a… Read more

  • Reflections on Association for the Study of Nationalities World Convention, New York, April 2016

    During the past week I’ve been attending and presenting at the World Convention of the Association for the Study of Nationalities (ASN) in magnificent New York, and wanted to use this blog post to follow up and share some reflections from an excellent conference. ASN is a large conference with two overarching sets of themes. Firstly, topic-based,… Read more

  • Can’t pay? Won’t pay? Russian goverment fails to pay salaries and stipends in Tajikistan

    Once known as Tajikistan’s most prestigious higher education institution, the Russian-Tajik Slavonic University (RTSU) in the country’s capital Dushanbe, has certainly fallen from grace in recent years. Last October, I reported on a sad and disturbing story about a student at RTSU being set upon by fellow coursemates, ostensibly simply for speaking up in class. The… Read more

  • University autonomy and academic freedom beckon in Kazakhstan

    Before the dust had even settled on the Minister for Education’s recent announcement that Kazakhstani universities will issue their own degree certificates from 2021, the next reform agenda for higher education in the country has been laid out. Speaking at a 2 April meeting with university rectors and faculty members, Deputy Prime Minister Dariga Nazarbayeva raised… Read more

  • Kazakh universities to go it alone: the end of the state-issued diploma in Kazakhstan

    In yet another move to distance itself from its communist past, the Kazakh Minister for Education and Science Yerlan Sagadiyev recently announced [ru] that the era of state-issued diplomas (degree certificates) would soon be coming to an end. Announced in parliament when everyone else was distracted (bored to tears?) by the recent Kazakhstani national elections, the announcement means that from… Read more