Higher education institutes in Chechnya

Three institutes of higher education are functioning in the Chechen capital Grozny at the moment.

The Chechen State University was until the late 80s one of the leading institutes in the North Caucasus. Founded in 1972 it had 9 faculties and 34 sub-departments with more than 60 Doctors and over 300 Candidates working there. The University had a solid scientific base, technical laboratories and a rich library. Every year it published  collections of works on technical and humanitarian sciences and regularly held international, national and regional conferences and seminars. During the 1994-1996 military operations the University's wings were destroyed. But some time later classes resumed on the premises of a boarding-school in Olympiisky district in Grozny and went on until October 1999. In March 2000 the University resumed work again. Despite the difficult times and destruction it published several monographs and text-books and 300 scientific articles. 2 theses for the PHD degree and 7 for the Candidate degree were defended. Last academic year the Chechen University had 5 thousand students. The preparatory department was working full time. This year the majority of entrants chose to go to the finance and economics faculties and the English department of the faculty of languages and literature. Competition at entrance examinations at the faculties was stiff enough with 6 people contesting one seat.

The Teachers Training Institute is the republic's youngest, opened in 1981. 7 faculties - humanitarian sciences, physics and mathematics, technology and economics, teachers training, natural sciences, physical training and correspondence - offered training in 17 professions. Now that the main building needs restoration, classes are held in another one. 2325 students are now studying at 6 faculties and  248 teachers are working, of them 4 Doctors and 67 Candidates. Starting from the new academic year the institute is opening post-graduate courses for 16 seats.

Grozny State Petrochemical Institute. Under a decree by the Council of People's Commissars of the Soviet Union on the 3rd of July 1929 the Oil Technical College in Grozny was reorganized as Petrochemical Institute with two faculties, mining and petrochemical. In the 50s the institute was among the country's prestigious institutes of higher education. Students came to study there from various Soviet regions and foreign countries. It was no accident because prominent scholars worked at the institute. Among them are academicians M.D. Millionshikov whose name currently bears the institute, A.A. Dorodnitsin, and V.A.Selsky. There were many Doctors of Philosophy and Professors among the staff. There were 8 faculties by 1989 and students graduated under 16 specialties. And more than 5 000 students studied in full-time, evening and correspondence courses. Though the institute was damaged in fighting the staff remains. Among them are Professors T.D. Dakhkilgov, M.M. Magomatov, S.M. Dibiev and I.A. Bashirov. The Institute is reviving owing to the staff's efforts. Now it has five faculties, oil technology, building construction, petrochemical, automation and information technology and geological and mining. At present about 3 000 students are studying in full-time courses. At the admission examinations this year four young people competed for one place. More than 50 000 have graduated from the institute in the past 70 years.

Grozny Music College Opened in 1937, the college has since spawned several generations of pianists, violinists, singers, accordionists, conductors and music critics. Most of these people graced the city's musical life and were known far beyond the borders of their native Chechen-Ingush Republic. During its heyday in the Seventies and Eighties, the college had seven departments - piano, singers, strings, winds, conductors', folk music and of music theory. The applicants held their breath hearing the names of Ogarkova, Snitko, Milhailov, Nikogosov, Bezuglov, Sudenko, Voit, Lukinov, Vysotskaya and other leading teachers each boasting a school and style all his own.

Many graduates of the college's piano department subsequently went on studying at the Gnessins Music Institute in Moscow and the Leningrad Conservatory. Once studying here, in the class of Merited Artist of the Chechen-Ingush Republic, Maina Snitko, was Ali Dimayev.

The singers' department was equally renowned, its graduates very successfully working with opera companies across the former Soviet Union, including the Lunacharsky Opera and Ballet Theater in Saratov and the Yerevan Opera Company. The conductors' and choir department was always the most populous, its teachers much credited for promoting the art of Chechen choir singing.The folk music department was equally famous providing excellent training on traditional folk instruments including, of course, dechik-pondur.

The department of wind instruments was hugely popular among the students, especially during the Sixties when their jazz orchestra was a major city highlight playing in the style of the Glen Miller Orchestra, which was very hip back in those days. A. Edisultanov was the pride and glory of the winds department, setting up a big band at the republican circus and conducting the symphony orchestra of the local philharmonic society. Composer Said Dimayev once also studied there.

Many graduates of the music theory department are equally admired in Chechnya, especially Adnan Shahbulatov, a well-known composer and public figure whose name is now borne by the music college he once attended.

The Grozny Music College has at various times been led by a constellation of talented musicians and managers, among them Leonid Brailovsky. A Merited Artist of the Chechen-Ingush Republic and a graduate of the conductors' department of the Gnessins Music Institute in Moscow, he once led a children's choir at the city's Music School No 1, trained would-be students and did a lot of educational work in the republic. He put together a team of excellent teachers and developed a highly successful teachers' training course there. The students regularly took part in all kinds of music competitions occasionally teaming up on stage with their teachers performing in Grozny and elsewhere in the republic.

Teachers working at the Grozny Music College remain true to the lofty traditions of their much-respected institution. Those of them who stayed on keep working on, never losing hope that, someday, orchestras will be playing there again.

The shortage of school teachers is among the many problems before Chechnya that makes efforts to return life to normal. This problem is more acute in rural areas. Nevertheless, the Chechen authorities do their best to solve the problem. To this end the teachers training collage in Grozny makes a significant contribution.

The college is one of the oldest in the republic and was founded in 1935. It has been training primary school teachers in the past 75 years. The graduates from the college teach in almost all 447 schools now functioning in Chechnya. According to the director of the college Amirbek Zairkhanov, youth from rural areas come to study at the collage with pleasure since they desire to return to their villages after graduation. The college has decided to open its branches Vedensky, Nadterechny, Shalinsky and Yrus-Martanovsky districts.

The director says that the collage has close contacts with the Teachers Training Institute in Grozny. The graduates from the collage are being admitted to the 2nd or 3rd courses so that they could return to rural areas as graduate-trained teachers. The staff of the institute also delivers lectures at the college and holds seminars. The director of the college believes that such a method makes it possible to fill all teachers' vacancies at the Chechen schools in ten years.