3 journal of azerbaijani studies in search of 'khazar

3. An Article on Education
I spent the summer of 1990 thinking continuously about education problems and the various new university models and I wrote an article entitled "Thoughts on Science and the Education System". I was intending to publish the article both in Azerbaijani and Russian to

give everybody an opportunity to read it. Since I had serious doubts that this article would ever be published I gave the copy to some of my acquaintances and friends who knew about my activities and were expressing interest in my ideas. Among them was Saleh Mammadov, doctor of economics, who would become the Minister of Finance in the government of the Popular Front of Azerbaijan.³

Six years have passed since then and from today's point of view some facts and ideas in the article seem simplified, some vital problems have not even been touched upon. But the main purpose of it was to draw the readers', and I also hoped officials', attention to the necessity of reforms in science and education. At that time I had but a slight hope of convincing them of the necessity and natural possibility of establishing new universities.

After about three to four months the article was published in Russian in the "Bakinskiy Rabochiy"⁴ newspaper in an abbreviated and simplified form. The article was entitled "To reform Education" and published under the headline of "Scholar's point of view" (January 25, 1991). The Azerbaijani version of the article was published in the newspaper "Communist"⁵ only in May 17, 1991 under the headline "Opinions, suggestions" entitled "Any education must be global". This belated version was also shortened but the expressions and sentences remained untouched. I have to mention with certain irony and pleasure that by the time the article was published in the newspaper "Communist", the university that I had been nurturing in my mind for a long time was about to become a reality. The Council of Ministers had already passed a decision to allow the setting up of the first private university and I had already begun working in this direction.

Before returning to other events in the fall of 1990 I'd like to introduce the article mentioned above in its entirety. Although the articles published in the newspapers "Communist" and "Bakinskiy Rabochiy" were not the same, the main messages were quite close. Since the style of the article published in "Communist" was more similar to my original manuscript, I present it to you with editorial abridgments distinguished by Italics.

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Hamlet ISAXANLI