HUMAN DEVELOPMENT AND MODERN TECHNOLOGIES
Chapter 1
1.3. Knowledge and Human Development
1.3.1. Current State and Opportunity for Progress
Today, the human development policy in Azerbaijan is targeted at overcoming poverty, which has put obstacles in the way of human development. The existing promotions in HDI (Table 1.1) are based primarily on the accumulated intellectual potential, knowledge and skills. Like other indices of economic and social development, Azerbaijan's intellectual potential has faced challenges, which have slowed down its development. Compared to the pre-transition period, the number of students of higher education establishments, employment rates at scientific research and designing institutions, as well as insufficient financing of education and research have all declined. State universities lead in the training of specialists in the country. This is particularly true in the fields of scientific research and engineering.
Along with State universities, the private higher education sector is developing rapidly. But, private sector universities mostly concentrate in the fields of economics, law, finance and education, as they have too limited a resource base to train scientific and engineering personnel and provide training labs with modern equipment.
Consider the following statistics: the number of students decreased from 148 per 10,000 of population in 1990/1991to 123 in 2001/2002. And then in the mid-1990s, it further decreased to 113 per 10,000. The financing for education (in percent of GDP) in reality did not decrease between 1991-1995 and following years but remained at around 0.04 percent of GDP per year. However, the real GDP in 1995 was only 41.8 percent of 1990. The GDP began to increase, starting in 1996, and was positively reflected in state budget revenues and expenditures, including the state financing of education. The UNDP and other international organizations and foreign countries, including both governmental and non-governmental institutions, also took part in improving the educational institutions in the various regions of the country.
In recent years, there has been a tendency for the number of university students to increase. State expenditures for education and scientific research have also increased due to economic growth. The number of those engaged directly in scientific research and technological activity has begun to grow, though only modestly, but only since 1999, following a reduction of the employment rate in this field by 36.5 percent in 1990-1998. Between 1998-2001, there was a 2.5 percent rate of growth in employment in these fields.
The recent upswing in the enrollment of university students and the employment rates in the natural sciences and technologies may receive support within the programs for poverty reduction (2003-2005) and ICT development (2003-2012), which have already been adopted for implementation. However, along with these programs, the country needs a new national high technologies development program, which covers an even wider spectrum of application than ICTs. The need for development of such a strategy is confirmed directly by the Technological Achievements Index (TAI), which identifies the priorities and which should constitute targets for national programs for development and use of technologies.
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