Baku SUN,
8, February 2008

Azerbaijan plans to improve the education system up to 2012. The President of the republic signed a decree to take measures to integrate the higher schools of Azerbaijan to the European education system.

"Our initiatives concerning the education and the introduction of information and communication technology are planned for the future. We should look 10,20 and 50 years into the future and see how Azerbaijan will exist after 50 years and what the intellectual level of the country will be like," President Ilham Aliyev said in Baku.

The Ministry of Education of Azerbaijan and their subordinates of higher schools are instructed to develop the Government Program on the Reforms in the Higher Education System of the Azerbaijan Republic for, 2008-2012 and to submit it to the Cabinet of Ministers by March 30, 2008.

A working group will be set up to develop the Government Program on the Reforms in the Higher Education System of the Azerbaijan Republic for 2008-2012. The first meeting of the working group headed by Misir Mardanov, the minister of education of, Azerbaijan will be held on 8 February.

As a result of problems experienced in the assessment of the knowledge in these schools, session exams and the entrance exams to colleges and universities will now be held by the Ministry.

According to the decree, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan is responsible for signing international agreements to realize the Bologna process in Azerbaijan and the integrating higher, schools of Azerbaijan to Europe. The Cabinet of Ministers is - instructed to confirm the list of specialties (program) of the bachelor's degree to the documents adopted by UNESCO and other international organizations including the proposals of the Ministry of Education.

The Ministry of Education says that the system of education in Azerbaijan is ready to join the unified system of European higher education and to transfer to the Bologna process. Shahlar Asgarov, the former chairman of the permanent committee of Azerbaijani parliament on science and education, said that there is no other large-scale project in the Azerbaijani educational system as the Bologna process. "Transferring to the Bologna process in education and conformance of the bachelor's degree to the documents adopted by UNESCO is a revolution," Asgarov said.

According to UNESCO standards, the entrance to higher schools in every country should be carried out on no more than 150 professions. Entry for a bachelor's degree in Azerbaijan is carried out on more than 500 professions.