OIL FOR PEOPLE

Established in 2011, the Baku Higher School of Oil (BHSO) has shortly become a leading university that prepares highly qualified specialists for the oil, gas, and chemical industries.

According to statistical data collected during the recent years, the minimum admission score at BHSO reaches 650-660 with the maximum possible score of 700. BHSO provides training for seventy-six presidential scholarship holders. In 2017, BHSO will release the first party of graduates.

To improve students’ living and studying conditions, the School has a campus inaugurated on May 1 by President Ilham Aliyev.

Rector of BHSO, Elmar Gasimov, has described the role of BHSO in the education system of Azerbaijan, cooperation with foreign educational centres, features of the new campus and perspective plans in his interview with R+.

The system of campuses has become widespread in the world, and we need them too. What are the distinguishing features of your campus?

On May 1, a significant event took place in the history of our school: President Ilham Aliyev inaugurated the new campus of BHSO. He walked through all the buildings, laboratories, sports facilities, the conference hall and other structures, talked with students and teachers. In his speech, he praised our activities and the new campus. We are very proud that we have a modern campus built upon international standards with all the conditions for educational and social life of students.

The BHSO campus covers 7 hectares of territory. It has a congress hall for 600 seats, stadium, swimming pool, fitness hall, student dormitory for 500 people, dining room, laboratories equipped with ultra-modern equipment, modern electronic library, kindergarten for teachers’ children, modern audiences, etc. The accommodation facility for 500 students allows us to fully meet our current needs. If necessary, we can build more buildings for students.

Specifically, I would like to mention our modern laboratories. SOCAR has provided laboratories for the departments of chemical engineering, oil and gas engineering and process automation with the state-of-art equipment. We also actively cooperate with transnational companies. For example, ABB presented us an integrated laboratory for management and security. This is the only modern laboratory in the region available not only for the students but also for specialists working in SOCAR and other companies. Schneider Electric has created for free a laboratory for the management of emergency situations and automation. Avandsis Group and Schneider Electric have also provided the elements and software for automatic systems; Emerson Process Management - a laboratory for control measurement.

This is actually part of the strategy for turning the oil capital into a human one, which President Ilham Aliyev announced 11 years ago. Which results of this strategy would you highlight?

All clauses of the Contract of the Century signed by the All-national Leader of Azerbaijan Heydar Aliyev in 1994 are being implemented. With the approval by the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev of the "State Program for Teaching Azerbaijani Youth Abroad in 2007-2015", the strategy of transforming oil capital into a human was begun to be implemented. Now we can say with certainty that the goal has been achieved. Thousands of students at the expense of the state were educated in the most prestigious universities in the world. Today in the healthcare, management, industry appeared high-class specialists, who were educated in this program. The State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan financially backed up the program.

At the same time, there was the SOCAR scholarship program, which was used by hundreds of students. These specialists are now working for the company, contributing to its transformation into a modern transnational company. This is the ardent indicator of the transformation of oil capital into a human.

Today about 20 graduates who received an education abroad under the state program are taught at the Higher School. Thus, oil capital has become a human capital, which itself generates new specialists. That is, Azerbaijanis who studied abroad today are creating this system of education with us. Spending a certain amount for education abroad 20 people, then we can get more than 200 specialists trained in the most modern world standards. If there were no such teachers, we would have to invite from abroad, spending large sums on it. This, of course, is a long and expensive process, but it is stable and durable. Japan, Singapore, South Korea went the same way, reaching the heights in the economy thanks to investments in science and education.

The very creation of the BHSO, the construction of this campus, I also consider part of the strategy of turning oil capital into a human. This entire infrastructure was created at the expense of oil resources and is aimed at the stable development of Azerbaijan.

And in general, over the past few years, about 3,000 schools have been built in the country, health care institutions have been established, roads have been built, and this is all created at the expense of oil capital.

Given the existing conditions in the global oil market, Azerbaijan announced the acceleration of transition to the post-oil economy. How would you evaluate the role of the strategy of turning oil capital into a human in this process?

We do not have to build our life based on oil prices. Any product has periods of decline and price increases. There is nothing stable in this world. There are both economic and political sides. And now we must pay special attention to the development of the non-oil sector.

Over recent years, Azerbaijan has implemented a large-scale policy to develop the non-oil sector. The roads, many hotels and other infrastructure facilities were built, which created the basis for the transition to the post-oil development stage. From this point of view, we have all the conditions for accelerated development. But at the same time, we should not forget that Azerbaijan was the first country in the world, which 170 years ago extracted oil in an industrial way. As you know, the Azerbaijani president recently took part in the opening of the restored first oil well in the world. And we must admit that in the development of Baku, in the whole of our country, education, science, health, integration into the international community, the oil factor played a decisive role.

Today a large chemical complex is being created in Azerbaijan due to oil. Next year, we are waiting for the opening of many chemical plants: the STAR plant in Turkey, SOCAR Polymer, a carbamide plant. We can say that next year will be the year of the chemical industry. And all these enterprises contribute to increasing profits, creating jobs for professionals.

This all creates opportunities for our students.

What is the role of the BHSO in the implementation of the strategy of turning oil capital into human capital?

BHSO develops the human capital. The quality of this development is another issue. Our graduates of Chemical Engineering Dept are the future specialists of national chemical companies. I have already said that several chemical plants will be launched in the coming year. But we should not forget that Azerkimya is being actively modernized, the reconstruction of the Heydar Aliyev Oil Refinery has been started, new facilities are being built there, and these upgraded structures need high-quality professional staff who are ready to be provided by BHSO. At the same time, our graduates are ready to pass any selections and competitions. For example, petrochemical complex Petkim selected 30 of our graduates as chemical engineers for work in Turkey. This shows a high level of education in the Higher School of Economics, when from the course of 50 people more than half immediately takes away the largest petrochemical complex in Turkey.

Do not you think to increase the number of students studying in separate faculties?

We note with caution the increase in the number of students, as this can lead to decrease in quality. We believe it is important to produce highly professional personnel. Currently our passing score is 650 out of 700 possible. We are thinking of opening new training opportunities for electricians, mechanical engineers, system engineers, etc. This will eventually lead to an increase in the number of students. But we do not plan to increase the number of students at existing faculties, otherwise the passing grade will be lower. How can students with 250-300 passing points study in the same class with students having scored 650-700 points?! In this case, it will be difficult to train high-level personnel. And with an equally high base level of students both the competition and development of students will be stronger and better.

BHSO is ranked the first in the rating of Azerbaijani universities. Seventy-six holders of presidential scholarship are studying here. What are the distinguishing features of your school? After all, the interest in BHSO is associated not only with employment perspectives.

The main advantage of BHSO is its social orientation. The education at our school is completely free. We do not have paid faculties; all expenses are covered by SOCAR.

The second distinctive feature is that the training is provided entirely in English. In the first year, we actively teach only the English language and IT-related subjects. Then the students must pass the language test to be eligible for the second course. It is necessary to score 6 of 9 points for IELTS. If the students fail the English test, they must take another year to complete the course. But we have quite good results, last year it was 8.5 points.

The third distinctive feature of BHSO is the organization of practical training. In June-July of each year, our students practice at SOCAR and other large companies such as BP, Emerson, Schneider Electric, Total, Avantis, Petkim. Upon completion of the practice, the students must pass a mini-exam to the engineers of these companies to demonstrate how successfully they have mastered the production process.

Our fourth feature is our entire educational program built upon the experience of foreign universities, in particular the program of the British Heriot-Watt University. This is one of the largest universities in the UK providing training for the oil and gas industry. We issue two diplomas – one from BHSO, and another one from Heriot-Watt. Currently, two diplomas will be issued to the students of the fourth and fifth grades. But from the third year of education, we have selected and included the most distinguished students in the program of the British university.

British teachers accept all our semester examinations; we do not interfere in this process. And the results of our students are better than the students of Heriot-Watt. Professor John Ford, General Director of the Department of Oil and Gas Engineering of Heriot-Watt University told this to President Ilham Aliyev during the opening ceremony of our campus.

We in general are very active in working with transnational companies. For example, last year 70% of all students who were practicing at BP were our students. We have an agreement with BP that we will provide them with personnel and help increase the number of local staff. We will hold our first graduation ceremony this year, and most of our graduates have already received job offers.

What is the level of cooperation with foreign training centres? Do you participate in student exchange programs?

We actively cooperate with the University of Houston, USA, as well as the universities of Stavanger and Trondheim in Norway, the French IFP School. Since 2017, we have joined EU’s Erasmus+ program for student exchange. The main condition of this program is the availability of graduates but we will have our first graduates this year only. Nevertheless, we were accepted to the program and two of our students continue their education in Greece.

The main deterrent for the development of cooperation programs for us was the absence of graduates. The following year, we presented about 30 projects to the EU for the exchange of students, teachers, joint scientific researches, etc. We are waiting for at least half of these projects to be approved.

Together with BP, we have established the project management school. Together with the George Washington University, the school will organize 10-month courses on the management of large companies.

In future, we plan to attract international students. Our main obstacle was the lack of a dormitory, as this is a very important factor for foreign students. But this year, we are waiting for students from Vietnam, China, and the Arab countries. They will be trained on a fee basis. We will follow our quality standards and check foreign citizens upon admission to BHSO. This is how we are going to export Azerbaijani education. We used to have many foreign students studying in Azerbaijan, especially in oil and gas industries. Now we are returning the former glory. If you look globally, attracting foreign students is also a development of the non-oil sector. For example, Great Britain earns huge money from education. We also want to follow this path. Our goal is to make BHSO known not only in Azerbaijan but all over the world. We have all the conditions to achieve this goal: both the material and technical base, teaching staff, and the environment for students.

Thank you for your interesting interview!