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In Azerbaijan, I had meetings with 15 presidents of different universities. Generally, the president, the vice president, an interpreter and me. We were designing a higher education policy. How would they approach it? What problems did they have? No, everything was fine, they told me. I asked the interpreter, "Why are they responding that everything is perfect when we know it is not, that the curriculums are outdated, that the texts that came from Russia are now useless, as they no longer use the Cyrillic alphabet?" One day she answered: "The most powerful lesson of all the years of the Soviet regime was that you must not make mistakes. This was punishable." "You and I were alone, why not recognize it?" "Why do you think the vice president was there? To maintain control." Such a thing would never have happened in Uruguay. If you make a mistake there... well, you make a mistake, say sorry and carry on.
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