Kazakhstan

Duke University to Partner with Nazarbayev University

Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business announced recently that it will partner with the business school at Nazarbayev University in Astana, Kazakhstan, with classes for the MBA program slated to begin in September.

Under the agreement, the Fuqua school will be providing teaching staff, while degrees will be granted by Nazarbayev University.

– The New York Times
October 10, 2011

Russia

A Business Education for the Realities of Developing Economies

The Skolkovo Moscow School of Management, perhaps Russia’s only internationally recognized business school, is preparing students for the business realties of working in emerging markets such as Russia, China, India and Brazil.

Skolkovo celebrated its fifth anniversary in September with a quick visit from Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s president and chairman of the school’s advisory board. In that time it has moved three times, only settling this year into its permanent home in an enterprise zone just outside the capital. The school unabashedly takes a different perspective from its Western counterparts. The ambition is to prepare entrepreneurs to function in what officials describe as “difficult economies.” Getting by in these countries oftentimes means coming to terms with institutional gaps, limited availability of talent, and graft.

Approximately half of the students on the full-time MBA program are foreigners, many from other “difficult economies.” The school was set up with the backing of Vladimir Putin and with donations from a handful of Russia’s oligarchs, including Roman Abramovich.

– The Economist
September 21, 2011

Modernizing Russian Higher Education

In August, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin called for the urgent modernization of Russia’s higher education system, proposing an allocation of RUB70 billion (US$2.4 billion) to support higher education, especially federal and national research universities. In addition, he launched a RUB12 billion project to attract top international specialists to universities.

Although the global financial crisis has slowed GDP growth in Russia, it is still outperforming other developed countries. If Russia manages to weather the crisis, the outlook for implementing the higher education plans looks promising, according to Daria Luchinskaya in an opinion piece for University World News.

In developing ‘world-class’ institutions, the government has been creating federal and national research universities. Seven federal universities were created by merging and restructuring existing higher education institutions in the seven federal districts, with the aim of developing links between universities and their regional economies.

The national research university (NRU) status was introduced in 2008, within a broader higher education modernization framework, and was awarded to two institutions by presidential decree. In 2009-10, 27 other universities won NRU status through a competition involving their proposed development programs. Although the national research universities are spread throughout Russia, they are concentrated in Moscow and St Petersburg. Their role is a mix of research production (both fundamental and applied) and its marketization, as well as intensive education and training of high quality graduate students.

Challenges to these institutions include the low mobility of academic staff, high levels of regional inequality, relatively low academic salaries and the organization of the recently created federal universities.

– University World News
October 9, 2011

Uzbekistan

Students Again Used as Forced Labor for Cotton Harvest

Thousands of university students in Uzbekistan have been mobilized to help with the annual cotton harvest and some say they are working under abusive conditions, RFE/RL’s Uzbek Service reports.

The harvest lasts from the beginning of the academic year in September until late autumn and only students at prestigious universities in Tashkent are exempt from taking part. The use of student and child labor to pick cotton violates state and international labor laws. Uzbek authorities have for years denied using students and young children in the country’s cotton harvest, which is of paramount importance to the Uzbek economy.

Some students from the medical school in Andijon have told RFE/RL on condition of anonymity that they are being forced to work in cotton fields under draconian conditions.

– RFE/RL
September 13, 2011