Education Issues

  • Slovakia: From Reform to Reward

    Slovakia: From Reform to Reward

    BRATISLAVA, Slovakia | It has been a traditional sight every 1 September for over a decade. Children across Slovakia would turn up fresh from the summer holidays and enter schools […]

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  • Hungary: A Testing Time

    Hungary: A Testing Time

    BUDAPEST, Hungary | There’s a new joke going around Hungary: “Should I hand out the exam paper,” the teacher asks the students before the big test, “or does everyone already […]

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  • Russia: A History in Dispute

    Russia: A History in Dispute

    ULYANOVSK, Russia | Teaching history in Russia is, in the best of circumstances, a delicate matter. In a single class, teachers can find the children and grandchildren of those who […]

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  • Hungary: Graveside Manner

    Hungary: Graveside Manner

    BUDAPEST, Hungary | It is the dead of night. A couple of young people hand money to a man, their faces digitally blurred. One props a huge medical textbook on […]

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  • Kosovo: Far From Pristine

    Kosovo: Far From Pristine

    PRISTINA, Kosovo | Petrit Hysaj is angry, angry because he says that the past week has been a complete waste of his time. A third-year political science student at Pristina […]

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  • Poland: A Season of Change

    Poland: A Season of Change

    POZNAN, Poland | The blooming chestnut tree has long symbolized a rite of passage for Polish 19-year-olds –school-leaving exams held in late April and early May. And in what could […]

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  • Russia: Gagarin Had Free Education

    Russia: Gagarin Had Free Education

    ULYANOVSK, Russia | When Russia’s pensioners took to the streets early this year in protest at plans to reforms social benefits, observers predicted this would be just one of a […]

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  • Croatia: Learning Curves

    Croatia: Learning Curves

    ZAGREB, Croatia | The Croatian education system is in the midst of the most important reform process since the country’s independence from Yugoslavia in 1991. But while the Science, Education, […]

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  • Kyrgyzstan: Seeds for a Poor Harvest

    Kyrgyzstan: Seeds for a Poor Harvest

    In the Soviet era, a student from Central Asia who wanted to study international law would have had to compete with thousands if not tens of thousands of other students […]

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  • Albania: In the Bleak Midwinter

    Albania: In the Bleak Midwinter

    TIRANA, Albania | On the third floor of a dirty, marble-faced building that hosts two hostile educational trade unions, the newspaper of the ruling Socialist Party, and a bingo hall, […]

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