Emma Harden-Wolfson

Higher Education in Central Asia Blog (est. 2011)

  • More independence for Kazakh universities?

    A detailed and interesting story from Kazakh news agency Tengri News today, reporting on a recent conference for higher education leaders in the country. There is reportedly a strong move towards offering greater independence to universities in the country on everything from curriculum to revenue streams. I couldn’t quite work out from the story why… Read more

  • Failing to get to university, failing to get a job

    Two stories about 30% today, both – sadly – focussing on failure. First, from Kazakhstan where EurasiaNet reports that nearly 30% of high (secondary) school leavers failed to pass their final exams. These standardised exams pave the way for entry to university, determining who can go, who gets state funding, and who is going to… Read more

  • A growing protest culture in Kyrgyzstan?

    Linking closely to my most recent post about an article on growing social gaps in Kazakhstan, I read an article today about protest culture in neighbouring Kyrgyzstan. As with the Kazakh story, whilst this BBC article does not directly link to higher education, there are definitely possibilities for interaction. This gives rise to some questions.… Read more

  • Growing gaps in Kazakh society?

    Sorry for the silence from this blog. Firstly, there hasn’t been much happening in Central Asian HE (or not that I have seen) – no high heels scandals this month! Secondly, we’re in the summer term at the University where I work and that means exams, panicking students, organising everything for next year and generally… Read more

  • Visualising educational disparity in Uzbekistan

    UNDP has produced this eye-catching visual representation of what would otherwise be a very long statistics heavy report showing the state of education in Uzbekistan, which a focus on the differences in participation and outcome based on gender. Reproduced below (c) UNDP Uzbekistan, source http://visual.ly/women-and-men-uzbekistan-difference-education. Infographics are an excellent way of familiarising people with what can… Read more

  • High heels hit the headlines

    My previous post High heels for higher learning seems to have captured the imagination of news agencies around the world. I’ve had pingbacks from France, China and Poland and the story was picked up by the Huffington Post, Global Voices Online as well as a number of syndicate agencies. Today, Spanish national newspaper El Pais has featured my post in… Read more