On April 24, 2020, the Minister of Education Jeyhun Bayramov held a video conference with the participation of senior officials of the ministry and rectors of higher education institutions. Professor Hamlet Isakhanli, the Founder of Khazar University and Chairman of its Board of Directors and Trustees, took part in the video conference.

Delivering and extensive statement at the video conference, the Minister said that since March, in accordance with the recommendations and instructions given to higher education institutions, distance learning has been provided in these institutions, thus more than 95,000 students have joined Microsoft Teams and some other online platforms. Currently, the coverage is expanding. In accordance with the recommendation, the positive experiences gained during distance learning are being shared among higher education institutions, and discussions continue in a spirit of mutual cooperation.

The Minister of Education noted that according to the action plan approved by the Cabinet of Ministers, along with a number of areas, the state will provide compensation in the amount of 40 million AZN to cover the tuition fees of students from the families belonging to socially vulnerable groups. The Ministries of Education and Finance were designated as the executive bodies in this direction, and the implementation period is set for 2020. For this purpose, the Ministry of Education has instructed higher education institutions to collect relevant applications from students belonging to this category. These applications will be included in the subsystem created in the “Centralized Education Information System” starting next week.

Moreover, the discussion was held regarding the views and approaches on the organization of the assessment process based on the results of the second half of the academic year, taking into account the current situation in higher education institutions. The Ministry gave general recommendations in this direction and instructed each higher education institution to submit proposals to the Ministry of Education on specific measures to be taken for this purpose as soon as possible.

In his speech, the Minister also touched upon the upcoming issues on the organization of higher education, including the organization of post-quarantine work.

Suggestions and recommendations on current issues were made and discussions were held at the video conference.