Several weeks after news broke that the head of Tashkent’s ‘most corrupt university’ had been fired, a new appointee has taken up the mantle.

Tashkent State University of Law (TSUL)’s Rector Yesemurat Kanyazov was fired not just from his university leadership position but also from his other job as Deputy Minister of Justice. The official reason now given was that Kanyazov was leaving for another role – Deputy Director of the Intellectual Property Agency at the Ministry of Justice, according to sources.

Taking the helm at TSUL is 36 year old Rahim Hakimov. Hakimov has a doctorate in law [the higher-than-a-PhD level Doctor of Sciences degree] and is a graduate of TSUL, from which he graduated with a Specialist degree [like a combined Bachelor’s and Master’s] in 2005. He joins TSUL from government, having previously served on the defence and security committee as a member of parliament.

Like his predecessor, Hakimov has also been given the dual role of Deputy Minister of Justice. Let’s see whether he has more effect in clamping down on the corruption that has given his new workplace the not so illustrious title of ‘most corrupt university’ in Tashkent.

PS Today is my blog’s 8th birthday! Having set out in 2011 to share stories about Central Asia and the former Soviet space and links to higher education, I’ve been true to form over the years. The blog has been viewed nearly 50,000 times to date and well over 1,000 of you subscribe to receive updates from the site. My top post – in terms of how many times it was viewed and shared on other sites – remains my bruising critique of the Tajik government’s introduction of a dress code for university students, High heels for higher learning. 

Thank you very much indeed for reading the blog. Here’s to the next eight years!