AIESEC Armenia Turns 20

The world’s largest university student organization, AIESEC, will be celebrating its 20 years of presence in Armenia on 4 and 5 September of this year in the city of Tsakhkadzor. Many AIESEC current members and alumni are expected to attend.

Founded in 1944, AIESEC (Association internationale des étudiants en sciences économiques et commerciales) is a nonprofit and apolitical organization of students and recent graduates of higher education. Headquartered in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, the AIESEC network currently includes more than 35,000 member students who are studying at over 1,700 HEIs in 107 countries.

AIESEC considers itself as “an international platform for youth to identify and develop their potential in favor of a positive impact on the society” and that it strives for “peace and the actualization of human potential.” In 2008, it arranged more than 5,000 international student exchanges and events.

According to AIESEC Armenia, AIESEC students and alumni have brought positive impact on the country as they have taken leading roles at the state apparatus, various businesses and in the education sector. Moreover, in the past 20 years, the Organization has favored international exchanges for over 1,000 students and graduate from Armenia and other countries.

Given the extremely limited possibilities that Armenian HEIs offer their students in terms of international mobility and encounters, the activities of AIESEC Armenia have offered many students with invaluable opportunities to go abroad, meet people of different cultures, host them in Armenia, exchange experiences, etc.

For the 20th anniversary celebration, AIESEC Armenia is planning to organize series of events aimed at gathering AIESEC Alumni from Armenia and the rest of former Soviet Union. More specifically, these events will attempt:

1.
To conclude the 20th years’ activities and create a platform for dialogue between the progressive youth and various experts who will propose innovative solutions to current social and economic problems in the country

2.
To identify common interests and approaches to the future cooperation between AIESEC members and its prominent alumni at the government, the business sector, the NGOs and the media.

3.
To create an AIESEC Alumni Association that will address specific issues related to Armenian youth in the areas of leadership, non-formal education, democracy and entrepreneurship.

For more information on the anniversary events, please click here.

With Putin’s blessing, Chechnya gets its “Islamic University”

In line with its revised interpretation of secular education, the Russian state passed yet another milestone this month by inaugurating a denominational public HEI. The initiative also had a strong political “justification”: The new "Russian Islamic University", inaugurated in Grozny on 21August 2009, is expected to compete with radical Islam.

"There are three million Muslims in our country and they all consider Russia as their home – their mother country – and we welcome the recovery of Islamic traditions," said Russian Prime Minister Mr. Vladimir Putin in his video message, transmitted on a big screen, at the opening ceremony of Russian Islamic University in Grozny, Chechnya.

The words of the Prime Minister in Moscow echoed those of Mr. Ramzan Kadyrov, Chechnya's president, who announced a future for the country without the influence of Wahhabi Islam and extremism.

Honoring Non-violence

According to AsiaNews, the Russian Islamic University, is called Kunta-Haji, in honor of the Sufi mystic who in the 19th century preached non-violence in Chechnya. It was founded on Kadyrov’s direct initiative through the Chechen Spiritual Governance for Muslims.

Along with courses in Muslim culture and doctrine students will study subjects taught in regular (secular) public universities: Russian, Chechen and English as well as Sociology, Political Science and Philosophy. During the first 2 years students will also take a beginners course in Arabic which is a requirement for any student wanting to go on and study Islam. The education lasts 5 years.The new HEI has recruited instructors from the Egyptian Al-Azhar University and the Abu-Nour University in Syria.

Rector of the University Mr. Abdul-Rahim Mutusev has declared that in 2009-2010 academic year they expect around 300 students to enroll at the new institution. High Ranking Guests

According to Interfax Russian news agency, via World Bulletin Turkish news agency, the event – purposefully scheduled ahead of the “holy” month of Ramadan – was attended by dozens of guests, delegations from the Russian Council of Muftis led by chairman Ravil Gainutdin, Muslim leaders from Russia’s North Caucasus regions, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Belarus, as well as Palestinian muftis, envoys or ambassadors from Malaysia, Turkey, Kuwait, Yemen and some other Islamic countries.

Not Exactly A First

AsiaNews specifies that the Kunta-Haji is not exactly the first Islamic university founded with the blessing of the Kremlin. Already in 2000 an Islamic University called the University of Kazan opened its doors in Tatarstan province under the direct supervision of the Russian Ministry of Education. At the time, Ravil Gainutdin, President of the Russian Council of Muftis, had explained the reason of such an initiative as being “to protect the country from foreign extremist teachings.”

Radical Islam has failed to spread in Tatarstan but has played a decisive role in the 20-year conflict between Chechen separatists and the Russian central government.

Russia’s New Single State Exam

According to Natalya Krainova of The Moscow Times, Russia’s new unified and standardized “Single State Exam”, known as EGE under its Russian acronym, has not solved the problems associated with university admissions.

This summer, the Single State Exam replaced oral and written exams for the first time nationwide. Comprised of a series of multiple-choice questions, the exam welds high school final exams and university entrance exams together into a single test. The format has been tested in several regions of Russia over the previous 8 years.

Continued Corruption

According to the reporter, while the government has touted the exam as a way to fight corruption and level the field for university hopefuls, the exam appears to be nourishing corruption among educators, creating a new business opportunity for crooks and leading to cheating among high school graduates.

This year, some test takers had managed to buy the exam questions. A high school graduate from the Siberian city of Omsk bought questions for the Single State Exam for 1,800 rubles (55 USD), splitting the cost with several friends. “Me and my five buddies chipped in 300 rubles apiece,” Vasily boasted on an Internet forum for high school graduates, Forum.postupim.ru. He also posted scanned questions for the math section of the exam together with his own answers.

According to Mr. Alexei Shishko, a senior Interior Ministry official, corruption in the university entry process has accounted for a major part of all crime in the field of education this year. The total number of crimes detected in the field of education has grown by 38 percent, or by some 2,200 cases, Shishko said at a news conference, according to a transcript obtained by The Moscow Times.

The head of the Federal Inspection Service for Education and Science, Ms. Lyubov Glebova, acknowledged in late June that “there have been reports about officials using their positions to secure high results for the Single State Exam.” She also said students cheated while taking the exam, using their cell phones to go online and search for answers.

In a recent example of corruption among educators, authorities in Tatarstan detained the deputy head of the Tatar State University of Humanities and Education on suspicion of extorting a bribe of 90,000 rubles (2,850 USD) from a prospective student, Shishko said.

According to Mr. Yury Shalakov, another senior Interior Ministry official, also in Tatarstan, the director of a local center where the new exam was being administered provided answers to students for 5,000 rubles. The director and his aide admitted students who paid the bribe into the basement of the center several hours before the exam, sealed the basement door and slipped the answers under the door.

In another scheme, web sites were offering questions and answers for sale, although buyers have no way to check their authenticity.

New Hurdle, Better Access

Another problem with the current system seems to be that it can make it more difficult to get a secondary education diploma on the first try because a student who fails sections of the exam is barred from retaking the exam the same year, a right they had before the Single State Exam was introduced.

For those who can manage to pass the exam, however, combining the two exams into one is seen as a relief. “The main plus of the Single State Exam is that a student has one exam instead of two,” Svetlana Zhyoltova, a history teacher at School No. 18 in the town of Nizhny Tagil in the Sverdlovsk region, said to The Moscow Times.

Yelena Alexandrova, who will start her first year as a journalism student at Moscow State University this fall, said she liked having “the whole summer free” because she did not have to prepare for entrance exams.

Zhyoltova also said the Single State Exam had allowed more Nizhny Tagil students to enter universities in Moscow and St. Petersburg this year because their parents did not have to pay for them to travel to those cities and stay there for entrance exams.

It seems, however, that the universities had not prepared for such a surge in the number of applicants. Some university admission committees did not have time to process all the applications even though they worked overtime.

Quality Concerns

According to The Moscow Times, many educators fear that the new exam could damage the quality of secondary education. Almost 3,000 teachers have sent a letter of protest to President Medvedev.

“Pursuing the Single State Exam … is producing graduates whose heads are devoid of any real knowledge,” said the letter, which is posted on a web site for educators, Zavuch.info (site in Russian).