Russia

U.S.-Russian Academic Collaboration Gathers Steam

In April, several Russian university presidents said that the current closer relationship with the United States was helping them build stronger ties to American higher education, with a focus on expanding research collaboration and embracing something close to an American style of technology transfer — a relatively new development for Russia.

As part of “The Entrepreneurial University Forum,” presidents and rectors of 30 Russian universities were in the United States for talks with the Association of American Universities and the State Department and individual universities. The forum was backed by the Russian Ministry of Education and Science, the American Councils for International Education and several foundations. Organizers said that this was the largest gathering in a long time of Russian and American university leaders.

– Inside Higher Ed
April 13, 2011

Foreign Experts Now Welcome at Russian Universities

A new law passed in April allows for the employment of foreign professionals as teachers at Russian colleges and universities. The law, adopted by the upper house of the Russian parliament allows foreign specialists in the country “on a business or humanitarian mission” to teach at higher educational establishments and cooperate with research centers alongside their basic job without having to change their migration status.

At present foreign nationals may only teach in Russia if they arrived in the country at the invitation of an educational establishment. The law is part of Russia’s move to ease immigration rules – an attempt to boost scientific, research and cultural exchanges and turn the country into a research hub and a center of academic excellence.

– RIA Novosti
April 13, 2011

Plans Afoot for Immediate Recognition of Foreign Academic Credentials from World’s Top Universities

The current doctoral recognition process for foreign academics in Russia is a long, tedious and overly bureaucratic one. That is about to change for those with credentials form the world’s top 200 or 300 universities, according to government officials.

Currently, professors with doctorates issued by foreign institutions are not allowed to participate in dissertations at the candidate or doctoral level, serve as department chairs or deans, or sit on certain academic committees. For doctorates to be recognized by the government, academics need to translate their dissertation into Russian and defend it (in Russian), before a panel of Russian professors.

In a bid to encourage more foreign professors to take up positions at the nation’s universities, the Russian government is working to automatically recognize diplomas issued by the world’s best universities. Igor Protsenko, the ministry’s director of international integration, said that eventually the Russian government will select from 200 to 300 universities whose diplomas will automatically be recognized.

– The Chronicle of Higher Education
April 19, 2011

Turkmenistan

Late President’s Book of Spiritual Meanderings Removed from School-Leaving Exam

Former Turkmen president Saparmurat Niyazov developed a cult of personality after his rise to power in the years following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Central to that stranglehold over the Turkmen people was a rambling spiritual guide that for years was hailed as the source of universal knowledge, and was required reading for all school children. In-depth knowledge of the book was even required for admission to university.

Now, however, the Central Asian nation is abolishing the requirement for students completing high school to take an exam on the Rukhnama, or Book of the Soul. Students will instead have to take a computer science test in the latest sign that the overbearing personality cult to Niyazov, who ruled Turkmenistan for two decades until his death in 2006, is gradually being dismantled.

Turkmenistan’s educational standards disintegrated under the arbitrary and authoritarian rule of Niyazov. He issued a decree in 2004 invalidating all university degrees obtained abroad and made study of the Rukhnama obligatory for students at all levels.

Although, the book is still taught for an hour a week in all classrooms, its role in Turkmen society has noticeably waned since Niyazov’s successor, Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov, came to power. The annual Rukhnama Day in September was once celebrated with great fanfare, but is now only nominally observed. Berdymukhamedov has gradually implemented educational reforms in a bid to mitigate Niyazov’s excesses. His government has increased basic education to 10 years from nine, and higher education has been extended from two years to five.

In March, Berdymukhamedov ordered the government to start recognizing foreign educational qualifications, a change that will allow graduates of international universities to get state jobs.

– The Associated Press
April 26, 2011