Azerbaijan

Government Educational Agencies: Responsibility for developing and implementing educational policies and programs rests primarily with the Ministry of Education, which collaborates directly with the World Bank-funded Education Reform Project. Under the Minister of Education is the Central Administration, which includes the Ministry of Education's assistant, secretary, jurist, licensing office, press, and Refugee Affairs bureau. Also directly under the Minister are the Economy and Finance Department (which in turn supervises the Division of Planning and Finance, the Division of Accounts, the Payroll office, and the office of Capital Construction and Procurement), the Human Resources Department, and the Higher Education Department (which in turn supervises two other departments: one for higher education and one for vocational education). Three Deputy Ministers are also directly under the authority of the Minister of Education. One of the Deputy Ministers supervises the Preschool and General Education Department, the Division of Textbooks, Press and Publications, and the Education of Children with Special Needs, Social Care and Rehabilitation Programs Section. Another Deputy Minister oversees the Science Department, the Analysis and Prognosis Department, and the Vocational-Technical Education Department. The third supervises the International Relations, Information and Coordination Department (which oversees Study Abroad and Overseas Students' Affairs), Patriotic Education, and the Office Management Department (whose responsibility includes supervising the offices in charge of Protocol, Service Staff, Logistics, and Archive).

Education Budgets: In 1997 Azerbaijan spent less than 4 percent of its GDP on education, a sizable drop from the nearly 7 percent of GDP spent on education in 1992. In 1999 over 50 percent of all non-defense-related budgetary expenditures on employment went to salaries for educational staff. Educational staff accounted for more than 10 percent of all employment—rates that were considerably higher than other countries in the region. Due to the decline in government revenues during the 1990s, funding for education fell and in 1997 public expenditures on education were only one-third of what they had been in 1992.