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10 000 students were illegally transferred from CIS universities to Azerbaijan within ten years â€“ INVESTIGATION

10 000 students were illegally transferred from CIS universities to Azerbaijan within ten years â€“ <font color=red>INVESTIGATION </font>

26 April 2011 12:26 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. 1066 applications were submitted last year for recognition of the university diplomas. The Education Ministryâ€™s sector on recognition of education certificates told APA that 776 applications were reviewed and 66 certificates were not recognized. Other certificates and diplomats are still investigated. Most of the recognized diplomas were given by the Russian (257) and Turkish (199) universities last year. 37 Russian, 23 Georgian, three Ukrainian, two US and one Kazakhstanâ€™s diplomas were reviewed negatively. 8 of the unrecognized 66 diplomas were forged. The fabricated diplomas were given by the universities of Dagestan (Russia), Aberdeen (UK), Forestry College of Buryatia (Russia), Civil Aviation Institute, St. Petersburg (Russia), South Russian Humanitarian Institute.

One of the problems in Azerbaijan is that the applicants failed in examinations organized by the Azerbaijanâ€™s State Committee for Student Admission use different ways to be enrolled on the lists of foreign universities, but executive official of the Ministry of Education Ilham Pirmammadov didnâ€™t consider it as a problem. He said the applicants graduated from the secondary school have a right to get education abroad if they collect necessary points on required language and send suitable CV. If the students choose the specialties of higher priority for the country, including medicine, engineering, IT, oil engineering, genetics, biology, they can leave for those universities after the ministryâ€™s examination of their rating. Otherwise the students will get an education abroad at own charge. Pirmammadov said last year almost 1300 students applied for the foreign universities and 650-700 applications were submitted for the British schools mostly on economics. â€œAbout 200 of them are specialties of higher priority for the country and therefore they were sent to the universities by the government. Perhaps others are getting education abroad at own charge, but we have no information about them. Later we will know itâ€.

Chief of the international department of the EM Gulu Novruzov said that the graduates who gathered low points, can not be admitted to the Turkish, as well as Czech and other European universities, because the language certificate is required for the admission to the universities of the European countries, and the winning of this certificate is not so easy. According to him, the weak children study most of all in the Russian, Ukrainian and Georgian universities. I. Pirmammadov also thinks that the admission to the Universities of the European countries is not so easy because of language requirement.
But Azerbaijani graduates who doesnâ€™t know language can be admitted to some universities of the North Cyprus because these universities donâ€™t require language: â€œThe children attend language courses within certain period in the North Cyprus universities, then they are admitted to the first course. It is absolutely right that the list approved by our ministry doesnâ€™t contain the name of these pupils. But when the student will return to Azerbaijan, his diploma will be recognized, because this school was accredited in its country. If the school had been accredited in its country, we recognize its diploma despite its weakness, rating. Lat year two persons studied in the US branch of one of the English universities. Then they brought us the document on the finish of this university, we saw that this branch was not accredited,. Thatâ€™s why we had not recognized those diplomas. â€

The ministryâ€™s official said a lot of people studied illegally abroad. These facts mainly concern the higher schools of Russia and Georgia.
â€œA lot of people were registered at the higher schools of these countries. We do not have such facts in other countries. There was a person, who said he studied for five years. We sent a questionnaire to the State Border Service and learnt that he did not visit any foreign country within five years, but got a diploma. The recent documents sent to the Education Ministry also show such facts. 37 diplomas of Russia were not recognized last year. Hundreds of diplomas received from Russian higher schools have not been submitted to the Education Ministry for recognition,â€ he said.
Pirmammadov said forged diplomas are given to Azerbaijanis not only by private schools, but also by state schools. Some persons organized admission of these persons to the higher schools. The ministryâ€™s official said usually there are no problems concerning the diplomas of the full-time students. The problem of non-recognition of diplomas concerns the part-time students. In many cases the entrants, who gain low points in the entrance exams in Azerbaijan, enter the higher schools of other countries with various ways, later they are illegally transferred to the higher schools of Azerbaijan and continue their education. SSAC leadership regularly publicizes these facts, but the process is still continuing. APAâ€™s investigations found out that in the recent years the persons, who failed to enter Azerbaijani higher schools through SSAC, entered 15 higher schools of CIS countries and were later illegally transferred to the higher schools of Azerbaijan. Approximately, 10 000 students were transferred within ten years. Most of these students were transferred from the following seven higher schools:

1. South Russian Humanitarian Institute
2. St.Petersburg Institute of Foreign Economic Relations
3. Moscow State Institute of Law and Management
4. Moscow State Open University
5. Makhachkala Institute of Finance and Law
6. Derbent Humanitarian Institute
7. Derbent branch of Azerbaijan State Economic University

This list also includes Ukraine International Management Institute, Kiev Interregional Academy of Personnel Management, Georgia International Academy, Georgia State University of Quality Management, Georgia State University of Agriculture. The majority of students were transferred to Azerbaijan State Economic University and Azerbaijan Cooperation University.
According to Pirmammadov, illegal transfers have not been made recently from foreign higher schools to Azerbaijani higher schools.
â€œOnly Azerbaijan International University made transfers without consent of the Education Ministry. It was closed,â€ he said.