Emma Harden-Wolfson

Higher education in Central Asia blog

  • 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

  • Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer

    This week, four stories that at first glance appear quite different… The UK’s Telegraph has featured a number of articles on Central Asia recently, and  the report I’d like to bring to your attention now is about the opening of a new British Embassy in Kyrgyzstan. This is, as the newspaper notes, ‘despite budget cutbacks’.… Read more

  • Developments in Central Asian higher education, part 2: Kyrgyzstan

    Today, Kyrgyzstan swore in Almazbek Atambayev as its new President, the first peaceful transition of power in the country. Молодцы! This was an historic moment and widely reported: I liked stories on MSNBC and the ever-reliable BBC, as well as reporting by 24, a Kyrgyz news agency (in Russian). The UAE-based newspaper The Nation rightly praises the… Read more

  • Political myth or reality in Kazakhstan?

    I was interested to read a story on the American Washington Post website about the Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev. The article seems intended to be light-hearted but I actually found it a little contradictory. The title makes it clear that the newspaper believes Nazarbayev to be authoritarian and paints a negative picture of his style… Read more