Admission to Post-Secondary Education and Student Socioeconomic Status in Azerbaijan: How does Meritocracy Serve the Student Candidates?

• In Event: Global cases studies in higher education

Proposal

This research focuses on the meritocratic system of accessing post-secondary education in Azerbaijan. Admitting students into post-secondary education institutions in Azerbaijan is executed through post-secondary education admission examinations. These are centralized and standardized examinations conducted every summer to check the high school graduates’ knowledge of what they are supposed to have been taught during their school careers. Only then can the student candidates apply for a post-secondary education institution, and their exam scores will determine which institution and which faculty they can be admitted to, if any. However, what this system fails to consider is that it is not fair for students to compete in one examination if they do not come from the same, or at least similar, backgrounds, especially in terms of the socioeconomic statuses (SES) of their families. Thus, the meritocratic system of the country raises concerns about the post-secondary education access of students from low socioeconomic status.
One major aspect that makes meritocracy a decent system is that it does not discriminate individuals based on their race, sex, religion, social class, etc., and only assesses their skills and qualifications (Kim & Choi, 2017; Mason, 2001; Simister, 2011). It favors competence over any kind of corruption, such as bribery and nepotism (Mijs, 2015). The sense in this, which I find quite reasonable and fair, is that doing otherwise would be harmful to society; hence, granting people educational and professional opportunities by assessing their talents and efforts is more orderly (Simister, 2011). Thus, theoretically and ideally, it is supposed to provide more opportunities for students from low socioeconomic backgrounds to move upward in the social ladder by working hard (Li, 2019). But is that in fact the case?
Reynolds & Xian (2014) identify two categories of the features that characterize meritocracy. These are the obvious features, such as talent, effort, ambition, and the hidden ones, such as family background, generational wealth, and network (Reynolds & Xian, 2014). Wilson-Strydom (2015) refers to this kind of arbitrary division of privilege as “natural lottery” (p. 32). According to McNamee and Miller (2004), such “initial class placement at birth” accounts for a major part of the nonmerit factors determining one’s success (Nonmerit Barriers to Mobility section, para. 2).
The post-secondary education admission in Azerbaijan, as in majority of countries across the globe, is based on the prior education student candidates receive. Ever since the establishment of the standardized testing, the admission has mostly been held through students taking a centralized standardized examination, the score of which will be the main determinant as to which university/college and what program they will be admitted to, if any (Abbaszade et al., 2012; Guliyev, 2016). Such examination is equivalent to what Western countries term “high-stakes testing” (Drummond & Gabrscek, 2012, p. 9).
After eleven years of schooling (this includes primary, middle, and high school) students are supposed to take an examination (Silova & Kazimzade, 2006). Most families try to send their children to private tutors, especially during the last two years of their high school, so they can prepare well for the post-secondary education admission examinations which they need to take in the summer right after their graduation (Silova & Kazimzade, 2006; Silova et al., 2007). Those who study with tutors mostly score higher than those who do not. In a survey conducted with 913 first year university students, Silova and Kazimzade (2006) found that a worrisome 91.8% of them had attended private tutoring during secondary school. Therefore, high school students mostly deem private tutoring as an irreplaceable path to access higher education (Silova & Kazimzade, 2006).
This research draws upon John Rawls’s Theory of Justice and Pierre Bourdieu’s Economic and Cultural Capitals. Rawls (1971) discusses how it is possible to build a just society as long as all, or at least most, of the members agree to behave in certain ways. Rawls refers to “the original position” proposed by Kante, a hypothetical situation where every member of a society is in a similar initial position. Thereby, the outcome of their work is considered to be fair because they have had similar opportunities, which has helped level the playing field. However, recognizing the hypothetical characteristic of this situation, Rawls (1971) argues that there should be more provisions for those who are less privileged.
In his Handbook of Theory of Research for the Sociology of Education, French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu discusses the academic achievement gap among children from different social classes (1986). He explains these gaps by the varying degrees of resources these children receive growing up. Thereby, Bourdieu identifies three types of capital: economic capital, cultural capital, and social capital. Economic capital is the most obvious type of capital, which is in the form of money and things that could be bought with it (Bourdieu, 1986).
The objectified state of cultural capital is related to cultural goods such as “pictures, books, dictionaries, instruments, machines, etc.” (Bourdieu, 1986, p. 243). Seeing how economic and the objectified state of cultural capital play an undeniable role in determining how successful one may become in the future, Rawls’s argument that the least advantaged should receive more benefits seems to be worthy of considering.
This qualitative comparative case study will deploy semi-structured interviews as the method of data collection. Post-secondary students from universities and colleges belonging to both high and low SES will be interviewed to gain insights into their post-secondary admissions preparation process and find out how those from low SES can be supported better.
Consequently, to gain more insight into the experiences of these students and how they are different from those from wealthy families, the following research questions guide this study:
1. What do students from low SES and high SES backgrounds experience commonly and differently regarding their admission opportunities of post-secondary education?
2. What implications may be drawn from these commonalities and differences for policy actors in Azerbaijan?
I strongly believe that this research will make a difference in bringing the focus to the SES differences of high school students and finding new ways of supporting them.

Author

• Roya Karimli, Western University, Faculty of Education