Emma Harden-Wolfson

Higher education in Central Asia blog

  • Post-Soviet education, part 2: Uzbekistan

    Here are a couple of stories about cotton-rich Uzbekistan. The first, from a blog called Why Nations Fail, looks at the phenomenon of children being forced to pick cotton when they should be in school. Below is an extract from the blog post specific to Uzbekistan: … For starters, take Uzbekistan. Why does it have… Read more

  • Post-Soviet education, part 1: Russia

    By happy coincidence, I’ve read a number of articles recently looking at education in a number of the post-Soviet countries. Below is an interesting story about Russia, written just before Putin’s re-“election” as President, and it also touches on higher education. The story is (c) Ria Novosti. Putin praises Russia’s educational revolution An “educational revolution”… Read more

  • Happy International Women’s Day! С международным женским днём!

    Today provides a great opportunity to publicise some articles published over recent days highlighting both the advances made by women and examining some of the factors that still hold women back in the world. First, women in higher education: The Guardian’s Higher Education Network is discussing  women in higher education who have inspired you on the website and… Read more

  • Nazarbayev University: the Oxford of Kazakhstan?

    Sorry for the silence since the last post (I try to post once a week) – I have been using all my spare time to complete a full draft of my Tajik study abroad paper. Given the wealth of information I received, you can imagine that it has taken some time to analyse all the… Read more

  • Education and human rights in Uzbekistan, part 2

    The letter from academics at London Metropolitan University that I featured yesterday clearly ruffled some feathers at the university. In response, the Vice Chancellor of London Metropolitan University wrote this reply in the UK’s Guardian newspaper (thanks to David Wolfson for spotting this): Uzbekistan projects Thursday 16 February 2012 21.00 GMT David Hardman et al… Read more

  • Education and human rights in Uzbekistan

    This is a repost of an article originally published by EurasiaNet.org, available here. British Academics Slam Education Links with Uzbekistan February 16, 2012 – 11:06am Lecturers from the London Metropolitan University have called on their vice chancellor to cease all operations in Uzbekistan following a February 12 editorial in The Guardian criticizing the West for turning a blind eye… Read more