Emma Harden-Wolfson

Higher education in Central Asia blog

  • Work Together to Build a Bright Future: the Universities Alliance of the New Silk Road

    Today’s post picks up on a recent report by Yojana Sharma in University World News on a new alliance set up in China to bring together universities along the Silk Road, that ancient trading route linking China to Europe. In fact, the exact geography of ‘Silk Road’ is very broadly interpreted for this new grouping, bringing together as it does… Read more

  • Kyrgyz MBA graduates aim to motivate and inspire others

    So, you’re one of the very few Kyrgyzstanis to have completed an MBA at a top American business school. What are you going to do about it? Judging by the two graduates interviewed by Radio Liberty’s Kyrgyz arm, Radio Azattyk, the answer is simple: share what you’ve learnt and try and inspire your compatriots to go and do… Read more

  • University admissions reform in Tajikistan

    A World Bank-funded project in Tajikistan that I first wrote about last year has now seen the implementation of a Unified Entrance Examination for university admissions under the remit of the National Testing Centre, a recent report notes. The purpose of the exam is two-fold: it aims both to widen participation in higher education and also remove… Read more

  • University closures in Russia – will Central Asia follow?

    Although this blog focusses on Central Asia, every now and then something happens in the broader sphere of influence on Central Asia that merits being featured. As part of its drive to enhancing the quality of university education in Russia, University World News this week reports on news that the federal government has recently decided that fully 40% of all… Read more

  • The benefits of the ‘near abroad’ – educational exchange in former Soviet states

    The ‘near abroad’ is a Russian conception, describing countries that used to be part of or have close ties to the Soviet Union, as distinguished from the ‘far abroad’ countries that we might otherwise call ‘the rest of the world’. Although Russian language usage is diminishing in Central Asian states, in part owing to state-building government tendencies… Read more

  • Study abroad – what happens next?

    Kazakh newspaper The Astana Times has this week published a story featuring three Bolashak scholarship holders to understand what happens once they return to Kazakhstan. The Bolashak Scholarships are the Kazakh government’s flagship scholarship programme, and have sent over 10,000 students abroad to study at top universities around the world. Although a condition of the scholarship is that… Read more