Emma Harden-Wolfson

Higher education in Central Asia blog

  • Global, but not local: Tajikistan’s new Education Minister overlooks basic reform needs

    Earlier this month, Tajik President Emomali Rahmon installed a new Minister of Education: the former Rector of Tajik National University Nuriddin Saidov. (The outgoing Minister Abdujabbor Rahmonov has been appointed Rector of Aini Pedagogical University. I don’t know if there was a particular reason for the move – the only information I can find is from state Read more

  • Students: heads you lose, tails you lose

    Are today’s students in the former Soviet Union too political or not political enough? Two recent stories from Uzbekistan and Russia suggest that either way, students will end up being criticised: you’re damned if you do care and you’re damned if you don’t. In Uzbekistan, the government has introduced a new moral code – no Read more

  • 20 years on: human rights in the post-Soviet countries

    I’d like to recommend a great article I’ve just read, The Soviet Fall and the Arab Spring. By an experienced human rights researcher, the article provides six ideas “about what has to happen after the revolution to make change stick”. The six ideas are: 1. There is nothing inevitable about transitions to democracy 2. Guard Read more

  • Developments in Central Asian higher education, part 3: Kazakhstan

    Today, a brief overview of the current situation for higher education in Kazakhstan, as part of my monthly series reviewing the Central Asian countries. Click on the links to read earlier posts on Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. Of the Central Asian countries, Kazakhstan in particular has embraced the concept of a market-driven higher education system and Read more

  • Happy new year!

    Happy new year! I hope you enjoyed a peaceful and happy holiday and are looking forward to what 2012 will bring. You’ll notice I had a break from this blog too, spent with my family and friends and including a fantastic four-way Skype call on New Year’s Eve with my parents in Italy, my brother in the USA, Read more

  • Wanted: Tajik nationals who have studied abroad!

    Greetings from grey and rainy Oxford… Last month, I wrote a post about a conference paper I had accepted and am now preparing. You can read the post again at the bottom of this story. Since then, I have been doing my literature review and developing a survey to collect data for my paper. The Read more