Education Issues
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Macedonia: Learn to Forget
SKOPJE, Macedonia | Ivana’s homework has a familiar refrain: she memorizes lessons from physics, chemistry, math, and history classes. She does this until her head aches, she complains, “and that’s […]
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Romania: One More Chance
CLUJ-NAPOCA, Romania | It is 11:10 on a Thursday morning when a slightly unusual science class, the last of the day, begins at Nicolae Iorga School in the Iris industrial […]
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Uzbekistan: From Russia, With Luck
TASHKENT, Uzbekistan | Anya entered the Tashkent branch of an expensive Russian economics university rather than one of Uzbekistan’s public universities, gambling that her choice would lead to a good […]
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Uzbekistan: The Philosopher-King
TASHKENT, Uzbekistan | Here is a pop quiz: Who is the prolific author of the 15 volumes of books and speeches that are required reading for Uzbek students in a […]
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Kazakhstan: Not a Golden Ticket
ASTANA, Kazakhstan | Kazakhstan’s National Science Fund recently rejected a job applicant because he was just too cocky.
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Macedonia: Macabre Market
SKOPJE | Like a character in a crime movie, Olga walked through the dark alleys of the city’s Taftalidje district late one February night. Waiting in the shadows was a […]
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Montenegro: Getting its Story Straight
PODGORICA | Predrag Raznatovic quickly reads aloud through the part of the history book that states thousands of Montenegrins were killed by Serbs in 1918. He doesn’t believe what he […]
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Russia: A Terrible Thing to Waste
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia | It was an amicable-seeming offer that the academic felt was impossible to resist. So the rector of a state-funded technical university in St. Petersburg, who also […]
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Bulgaria: Classsroom Blues (and Grays)
SOFIA, Bulgaria | At the German Language High School, the teachers’ lounge is a gloomy room with faded sofas, drab chairs, and dust-covered computers that no longer work. Time stopped […]
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Moldova: Diplomas for Sale
CHISINAU, Moldova | Ion speaks with quiet resignation about the corruption in the Moldovan school system. Ion recently graduated from a lyceum in northern Moldova and paid 450 Moldovan leu […]
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