Educating for inclusion beyond the pandemic – Learning from Central Asia

I've recently returned from Washington DC, USA, where this year's Comparative & International Education Society (CIES) conference took place. A huge gathering of over 3,000 education researchers, policymakers, and practitioners, the conference opened many valuable spaces for learning, (re)connecting, and sharing research and ideas. Members of the GPE KIX research team with then Kyrgyz Minister …

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Podcast: Internationalization in post-conflict societies – Iraq and Tajikistan

Following the recent publication of our open access article on faculty experiences of higher education internationalization in post-conflict Iraq and Tajikistan, my co-author Dr Hayfa Jafar and I were invited by the team at Thesis podcast to discuss our findings in audio form. Dropping today, our episode can be found at https://anchor.fm/thesis-podcast along with links …

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Building research capacity at universities in the former Soviet space (new book)

The very lovely cover of the new book It's been a very long time in the making but the new book Building research capacity at universities: Insights from post-Soviet countries is now out! The book offers a comprehensive analysis of developments in higher education systems across the former Soviet space with a focus on research …

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The challenges of higher education in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan

Here's a link to a very interesting recent story from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty by the excellent Bermet Talant. In this piece, Talant interviews a university student in Tajikistan and an instructor at a private university in Uzbekistan about the higher education landscape as seen from their perspectives. You can read the key takeaways or …

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Faculty Experiences of Higher Education Internationalization in Post-Conflict Iraq and Tajikistan (new open access article)

The internationalization of higher education has been on a fairly linear upward trajectory (at least until 2019 - data for the pandemic period isn't fully available and it's too soon to see whether travel and other disruptions will have a long-term effect). That means more students going abroad for all or part of their programmes, …

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Surviving a Crisis: Transformation, Adaptation, and Resistance in Higher Education (new article)

My new article, Surviving a Crisis: Transformation, Adaptation, and Resistance in Higher Education, is now out. The article is open access and the online first version is available to download at https://dergipark.org.tr/en/pub/hegp/issue/69503/1054946. This is the first article to be published from my PhD research and it also builds on the webinar I gave at the …

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Next Generation: Reflections and perspectives on higher education in the former Soviet Union [free online conference, 14 & 15 Feb]

The conference image. Source: Pixabay I warmly invite you to join a free online conference I am organizing at UNESCO together with HSE University (Russia) on 14 and 15 February. All welcome with registration required (links below). Please share the information widely. Date: Monday 14 February 2022 and Tuesday 15 February 2022 Time: 09:00 – …

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The next ten years in Central Asian higher education: Looking to the future after a decade of blogging

I've spent many a happy hour enjoying the challenge of finding a vaguely suitable cat meme to go with many of my blog posts Somehow, the tenth anniversary of this blog has rolled around. From my very first post published on 30 September 2011, I've published 345 posts, averaging around three posts a month. In …

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International students can return to Russia

International students are ready to fly back to Russia - if they can afford the price of the ticket After partially reopening its borders to international students in March 2021, the Russian government announced in September that all international students can return - or come for the first time - to study in the country. …

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