Azernews.Az

By Amina Nazarli

Deputy Education Minister of Azerbaijan Yagub Piriyev has announced that the government will keep university tuition fees unchanged in 2016.

Earlier students of Azerbaijani universities and their parents voiced concerns over possible increase in the tuition fees due to the devaluation of the national currency, the manat.

Since the manat lost half its value setting at 1.5578 manats to the dollar as of December 29, students worried that the economic crisis will also negatively affect the education sector.

Piriyev clarified this issue, noting that the question of increasing tuition fees in higher educational institutions of Azerbaijan is not in the agenda.

“Universities themselves determine the cost of payment. Tuition fees of students, who were enrolled before this year, will remain unchanged,” the deputy head said.

Piriyev said the tuition fees for the next academic year will be considered in March, after preparation of the plan for universities admission. He stressed that 75 percent of the universities’ income from tuitions fees go to the teachers’ salaries.

Touching the salaries of professors-teachers working at the universities, he said that their salaries reach 1,000 manats (about $641).

Meanwhile, Deputy Director of the Human Resources Department of the Education Ministry Ilham Nagiyev noted that salaries of teachers of three cities and nine regions will be increased by 30-40 percent starting January 1.

Earlier, some 9,000 secondary school teachers of Sumgayit, Absheron and Gubadli passed an exam for refresher courses. Despite the exam results, the growth of salary will be applied to all teachers who have passed the evaluation exams.

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Amina Nazarli is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli

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