Tag Archives: education

Kazakh developer produces student app

APRIL 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – A developer in Kazakhstan has produced an app for students to help them study for exams which he said would help to reduce stress and, also, high suicide rates among students. Analysts think that the country’s demanding school system contributes to boosting youth suicide rates among the world’s highest. Recently, the ministry of education announced that students could re-take failed exams.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 279, published on May 6 2016)

Azerbaijan to cut funds for overseas study

APRIL 15 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan is phasing out a programme that funded overseas study for undergraduates in order to save money during an increasing vicious economic downturn.

Mikhail Jabbarov, Azerbaijan’s minister of education, said funding for bachelor level programmes has dried up.

“The ministry is developing a new format of the program, which envisages education at foreign higher educational institutions only for PhD and Master’s Degrees,” Mr Jabbarov told media.

The government’s stated objective is to attract more foreign professors to Azerbaijan to allow undergraduates to receive high-level tuition without having to study abroad.

What the government cannot openly say is that the programme has become unsustainable because of a sharp drop in oil prices that has dragged down its economy.

The ministry of education’s overseas undergraduate programme is one of two channels that Azerbaijani youth can use to access scholarships to study abroad.

SOFAZ, the country’s oil fund, had also established an eight-year programme in 2007 to fund education abroad. But that programme is now being wound up and is unlikely to be extended.

In the first quarter of 2016, SOFAZ said it spent 5m manat ($3.3m) paying fees for Azerbaijanis studying abroad.

Analysts have said that if both programmes were cut, Azerbaijan would, effectively, be isolating itself from the West.

The government has already cut several domestic social projects, including updating broadband internet across the country and investments in care homes, roads and railways, to cut costs.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 277, published on April 22 2016)

Kazakhstan allows headscarves in school

MARCH 31 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s minister of education Yerlan Sagadiyev said school councils were free to allow headscarves into the classroom. The declaration follows a public request to allow kimeshek headdress, considered part of Kazakh traditional dress, thus not in conflict with the government’s ban on wearing religious clothing items. Mr Sagadiyev’s declaration has now opened the way for more exceptions.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 274, published on April 1 2016)

Georgian students protest

MARCH 11 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Hundreds of students at Tbilisi State University staged a sit-in to protest at what they said was the non transparent way the university decides on its management structure. The protest attracted nationwide attention, and even forced the intervention of PM Giorgi Kvirikashvili. Some analysts said that the protest could spread.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 272, published on March 18 2016)

Kerry heads to Kyrgyzstan at start of Central Asia tour

OCT. 27 2015, BISHKEK (The Conway Bulletin) — US State Secretary, John Kerry, was due to fly to Kyrgyzstan on Oct. 31 for the start of his first tour of Central Asia, a stopover considered vital to repair relations with an ally that has drifted towards Russia over the past couple of years.

In Bishkek, Mr Kerry will hold bilateral discussions with senior Kyrgyz officials, including President Almazbek Atambayev, and open a new campus for the American University of Central Asia.

Top of Mr Kerry’s agenda will be the growing influence of Russia as well as a draft bill banning so-called gay propaganda and a law that bans local NGOs from foreign funding.

Marat Kazakpayev, a Bishkek analyst, said US investments and security would be discussed.

“They will discuss security in the region, including situation in Afghanistan and Syria, as well what to do to counter terrorism,” he said.

The US operated an airbase from the Manas airport outside Bishkek for 13 years until 2014 when it was wound down alongside military operations in Afghanistan.

For Mr Kerry and the US, this is an important trip to Central Asia.

It has ceded influence in the region to Russia and China. Russia has the historical, political and cultural links; China has the financial firepower.

In contrast, with the scaling down of military operations in Afghanistan, the US and the West have appeared to disengage with Central Asia. Mr Kerry’s main mission will be to re- assure the region’s leaders that the US is still interested in Central Asia.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 254, published on Oct. 30 2015)

Kazakh government orders textbook publisher to redraw map of Ukraine

OCT. 1 2015, ALMATY (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s ministry of education ordered the Metkep publishing house to redraw a map used in one of its textbook which suggested Crimea was part of Russia.

Like most countries, Kazakhstan has not officially recognised Russia’s annexation of Crimea after a referendum last year in which the majority of people voted to leave Ukraine.

The Ukrainian embassy in Astana last week complained about the map in the school textbook, embarrassing the Kazakh government which needs to tread a fine diplomatic line between Russia and West.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 250, published on Oct. 2 2015)

Exam stress may trigger suicides in Kazakhstan

ALMATY/ASTANA/ Kazakhstan , JUNE 25 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Politicians, teachers and schoolchildren in Kazakhstan are debating the value of a new standardised test that gives access to university grants and financial aid.

Some have linked the test to the high rate of youth suicides.

And the link may not be far-fetched. Kazakhstan has one of the highest youth suicide rates in the world and it has risen since the exam was released a few years ago.

At the Hazret Sultan mosque in Astana, the largest in Central Asia, deputy Imam Maksat Kairgaliyev said that the stress the new test placed students under and the relatively high suicide rate for young people in Kazakhstan were linked.

“This has unfortunately become a pattern,” he said.

Introduced in 2009, the Unified National Test (ENT is its Russian acronym) has become less and less popular among students.

Last May in Aktobe, two 17-year old classmates killed themselves. Their suicide notes both blamed ENT. Another 18-year-old schoolgirl in southern Kazakhstan tried to kill herself just after sitting the ENT test.

Azamat, a first-year student at a university in Almaty, told the Bulletin: “Kids freak out because their future depends [on the test] and which university picks them.”

MPs have also raised concerns. In November 2012, Dariga Nazarbayeva, the eldest daughter of the president and member of the Parliament, was among the first to connect the ENT to youth suicides during a question time with the minister of education.

But the government has defended bringing in the ENT as an effective way of measuring who the best people are to receive grants and various financial aid. Deputy PM Berdybek Saparbayev said the link is inappropriate. “High numbers of suicide are recorded in our country every year,” he said. “But it’s not appropriate to link that to the youth fearing the ENT.”

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 237, published on June 25 2015)

Tajikistan needs to improve labour

>>World Bank says Tajikistan needs to adapt>>

FEB. 4 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — In a report on Tajikistan, the World Bank said a third of Tajik men leave the country to find work and that the informal market employs about 60% of the population.

Adapting local labour training to a market that needs analytical skills and not just manual work is key to developing Tajikistan’s workforce, the World Bank wrote.

The migration numbers and the large informal economy mean the Tajik economy is fragile, especially when its main driver — the Russian economy is also under stress.

The Tajik Central Bank has raised interest rates and depleted its currency reserves in an attempt to defend its currency from a sharp devaluation. It has warned that it can’t sustain a long, second defence of its economy.

In its report, entitled “The Skills Road: Skills for Employability in Tajikistan”, the World Bank argued that the Tajik economy is undergoing significant changes that need a new approach from the government to develop more and better analytical skills to boost the formal sector of the economy and also reduce migration trends.

“New economy skills are strong analytical and organizational skills, including non-routine cognitive analytical and interpersonal skills,” the World Bank wrote.

“The report’s conclusion is that the government could shift the focus from providing access to educational institutions and instead focus on providing the skills (cognitive, non-cognitive, and technical) to students who need to succeed as adults.”
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 218, published on Feb. 11 2015)

Azerbaijan raids Radio Free Europe

>>US criticises yet another crackdown on civil liberties>>

DEC. 28 2014, (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan continued its crackdown on the media in the run up to New Year when it raided the office of US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL).

Officials pulled RFE/RL off the air and detained a handful of its journalists. They said that the raid was
part of a criminal investigation although they refused to elaborate.

Earlier in December Azerbaijani officials arrested an employee of the local language RFE/RL service for allegedly working for a foreign security service. Also, one of the radio station’s star journalists, Khadija Ismayilova, is currently being held in pre-trial detention. She is accused of coaxing a man into suicide.

For the past couple of years, the authorities in Azerbaijan have been mounting an increasingly aggressive
campaign against the remnants of its free-speaking media and other more liberal minded sections of its civil society. Newspaper editors have been imprisoned, anti-government activists locked up and NGOs backed by Western powers threatened.

And this belligerent attitude towards Western values has now severely strained relations with the US and Europe.

The US issued a strongly worded statement criticising the raid on RFE/RL.

In 2014 the US also withdrew its long-running Peace Corps programme. Although this was described as routine, observers said it was likely linked to worsening relations.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 213, published on Jan. 7 2015)

US Peace Corps leave Azerbaijan

DEC. 8 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The US Peace Corps programme, which sends young Americans to teach English around the world, left Azerbaijan. Depending on who you believe, the US either withdrew the programme because it decided it was no longer needed, or the Azerbaijani authorities threw Peace Corps out as Washington-Baku relations deteriorated.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 212, published on Dec. 10 2014)