Conquering Sweden. Interview with Evgeniy Kochkin
SESL researcher Evgeniy Kochkin, well-known for his trips to India, is conquering Sweden right now. He entered a 2-year master’s program «International Development and Management» at Lund University founded more than 350 years ago. We asked Zhenya about his studies and future plans via Skype.
SESL researcher Evgeniy Kochkin, well-known for his trips to India, is conquering Sweden right now. He entered a 2-year master’s program «International Development and Management» at Lund University founded more than 350 years ago. We asked Zhenya about his studies and future plans via Skype. - Zhenya, why have you selected Sweden and how did you choose the program?
I was choosing neither a country nor a program, namely university. I have been interested in Indian education issues for several years already. I attended a seminar organized by SASNET (Swedish South Asian Studies Network) at Lund university a year ago. I found out that there are a lot of young scholars in Sweden, in Lund in particular, who are interested in South Asia. There are interesting projects and libraries with a large number of materials about these regions. Therefore I decided to enter this university.
-Was it complicated to enter the university?
According to what the program’s head said, this program is one of the most popular nowadays, so, probably, the selection process was pretty serious.
-Who is studying with you in this program?
The students were enrolled from very different parts of the world: North and Latin America, Europe, Asia, Africa, there are only two of us from Russia. A lot of them have work experience in developing countries or international organizations (UNDP, UNISEF, Red Cross etc).
- How is the educational process organized ?
Due to the fact that people in the program came from different countries, the seminars are very interesting. While discussing stated problems, everyone shares his experience, can teach others something and learn something himself. Apart from lectures and seminars students from my group organized regular documentary movies viewing and informal seminars where everybody can tell about work experience in developing countries. This is very good, because the students have really unique experience, for example, one of them came from the USA, he served in the army in Iraq for a year. A girl from my group conducted research on the role of women in politics in the poorest and the most disadvantaged Indian state (this is quite unsafe). Guys from Europe and Canada worked in Africa for a long time. It is very nice that there are people with both humanitarian and technical education.
-What are you going to do next?
The compulsory part of the program is an internship in one of the developing countries. Each of us is supposed to choose a topic which he is interested in, a country and an organization where he is going to work. We split into groups according to the regions we are interested in and started to search for organizations together. I decided to continue working on education in India. I have already worked there and collected data on secondary and higher education. Right now I am planning to focus on preschool education in rural regions of India. I am going to spend the first part of the internship working at UNICEF (an international organization which is occupied with kindergartens’ development in rural regions of India together with the Indian government) or one of the local non-profit organizations which promote such projects. This will make it possible for me to collect statistics. I would like to spend the second part of my internship in the countryside of the Indian states Kerala, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh in order to look at how the program’s efficacy differs depending on the state.
-Why are you interested in this topic?
People live mostly in extended families with 10, 15 or sometimes even 20 members in rural regions. There is no problem with looking after a child – you can always leave your child with someone. Therefore, the kindergartens weren’t popular when the government started to open them in the rural areas about 20 years ago. But now the example of Maharashtra state showed me that parents willingly take their children to kindergartens. Besides looking after children these institutions perform a lot of other duties. They collect statistics about how many pregnant women and children of different ages there are in villages, etc. The kindergarten teachers teach women how they should properly take care of their newborn children, provide them with free nutrition during pregnancy. Children are inoculated, fed and taught for free. This program is one of the most effective which I have ever encountered. Therefore, I would like to look in details on how these institutions work, which manifest and latent functions they perform.
-We wish your plans will come true!
The talk was held and recorded by Ekaterina Trofimova