Feb 17
Nelson Mandela once said: ‘If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own language, that goes to his heart.’ I couldn’t agree more: learning a foreign language is a tool to understanding a county’s people and their mentality. It is the key to unlocking new cultures, markets and business partners.
I was pleased to come across this article in The Times yesterday setting out the interconnection between higher education and international business. The article draws on observations by Jim O’Neill who came up with the BRICS acronym.
This week I wrote an article to correspond with the launch of the new BRICS and Emerging Markets Higher Education Rankings. Russia currently tails its BRICS counterparts in the rankings. I thought it important to highlight that, regardless of what the rankings illustrate, academics, the government and business are now joining forces to help Russian institutes climb the world rankings to invigorate the country’s talent pool. It still has a long way to go, but with more help from businesses, Russian institutes will move even further in the right direction. continue reading
Andrey Yakunin