Center for Economic Research & Graduate Education - Economics Institute

Testimonials

We have selected a number of comments from teaching fellows and supervisors which demonstrate the wide-ranging impact that their teaching has had on themselves and on the institutions where they taught.

Overcoming Financial Limitations

Inna Čábelková, Ph.D., Fellow

CERGE-EI Ph.D.2001, Faculty of Humanities, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic

Even though I like teaching economics, I had to do other work for the institution, which left less time for my teaching job. The CERGE-EI Fellowship enabled me to concentrate on my main job, start teaching new methodological courses (which are extremely needed on our faculty) and be able to pursue an academic career further on as a researcher. The course Quantitative Methods 1 is a new course that I would not be able to teach without the Fellowship. When I got the Fellowship I stopped work elsewhere and had time for this new course. As for the other courses I teach (two sessions of Introductory Economics, a seminar on Economics I, and an Introductory course of economics for students with combined enrollment, as well as other teaching duties), the Fellowship enabled me to continue to teach them, since otherwise I needed to look for a new job.

in the third year of her grant, she wrote:

I applied for the CERGE-EI Teaching Fellowship in order to continue teaching at the public university. The other option was to find a job in the private sector, which would be better paid. [The Fellowship] helped me to stay teaching and to concentrate on my main job instead of having a part time job beside it.

(Dr. Čábelková’s statement was repeated by every post-doctoral Fellow, and almost every graduate student, as well.)

Katarina Svítková, Ph.D., Fellow

CERGE-EI, Ph.D.2007, Dean, Business Administration, Anglo-American College, Prague

I accepted a position with the New Anglo-American College in Prague as Chair of School of Business Administration. The Fellowship offered by CERGE-EI made the offer more competitive and supported my decision to stay in academia. However, I would be more prone to re-evaluate my decision to stay in the school without the Fellowship.

Gurgen Aslanyan, Fellow

CERGE-EI Graduate Fellow, University of Economics, Prague

The Fellowship gave me the financial incentive to devote the scarce time of a graduate student to teaching, since local universities are financially constrained to hire.

This Fellowship makes it possible for me to stay at the University, otherwise, I would have to make living in the private sector.

Georgiy Burlakov (CERGE-EI Graduate Fellow, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic):

• It would be impossible to teach my course without the fellowship.  The payment of 200 CZK/hour ($10) that the university pays a visiting teacher without a CERGE-EI Fellowship at the Masaryk University, Brno, does not begin to cover the opportunity cost of preparing the material and traveling from Prague and back 8-10 times during the semester.

Zvezda Dermendziava (CERGE-EI Graduate Fellow, University of Economics, Prague):
• I have been interested in teaching even before the fellowships were available, but I was not able to find such an opportunity, as the cost for the university to “hire” anyone to teach such a course would have been too high.

Ádám Szentpéteri (CEU Graduate Fellow, Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary):
• The Fellowship provides an excellent opportunity to improve my teaching skills even after 10 years of teaching experience. Second, joining the Fellowship means becoming a part of a unique network of young teachers and researchers in the region, which can be invaluable in future research. Last but not least, the financial support received facilitates devoting more time to teaching and research by cutting back less valuable projects, done solely for living. As an assistant professor at ELTE Faculty of Law I was approached by the head of the Economics Department to teach an extra course at ELTE Faculty of Social Sciences. It was a very honoring request, but there is a clear trade-off between teaching and devoting more time to profitable business projects. Thanks to the Fellowship funding I was able to cancel some, otherwise necessary, income generating projects, and devote more time to teaching and academic research.

Pavel Vacek, (Cornell Ph.D CERGE-EI Fellow, Institute of Economic Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University, Prague):
• The CERGE-EI fellowship that supplements my monthly salary at the CU in Prague has been very important for me. Without additional sources of financing, I would not be able to stay in Czech academia. I graduated from Cornell University, USA with Ph.D. in Economics in 2007. I wanted to return to the Czech Republic to teach at the Charles University in Prague but financial terms did not allow me to do so. Therefore, I accepted a tenure-track position of Assistant Professor at the University of Alberta, School of Business, in Edmonton, Canada. The CERGE-EI Fellowship provided me with additional income to enable me to return to the Czech Republic and teach at the Charles University in Prague.
• The course of Antitrust Economics is brand new at the Institute of Economic Studies and without financial support of my position would not be available. Moreover, although the course named as “International Finance” existed before, it had totally different content and students were not happy with the previous lecturer and course content. Without financial support of my position, this new course of International Finance would not be offered.

Zviad Zedginidze, (ISET Graduate Fellow, Tbilisi State University, Georgia):
• It must be mentioned that without the provided financial support I would not be able to be involved in teaching at Tbilisi State University. After several years of teaching experience through this fellowship, I realized that this is my calling.

 

Fellows: Raising Quality of Economics Instruction

Gurgen Aslanyan (CERGE-EI Graduate Fellow, University of Economics, Prague):
• A similar course is available at the university in the local language, but the local faculty does not have training in modern economics, and it is taught poorly. I had to rewrite the entire syllabus although I was offering seemingly standard intermediate economics course.

Zvezda Dermendziava (CERGE-EI Graduate Fellow, University of Economics, Prague):
• The course I have been teaching in the Prague University of Economics had only been available in Czech. Besides being allowed to change the language of instruction, I was given the freedom to rewrite the course syllabus, choose the main text and the material to be covered during the semester, which substantially changed the course and significantly deviated from the original course offered in Czech.
• The students responded very positively, despite claims that the course turned out to be more demanding than they had expected. Initially there were also some fears that the course offered instruction in a "different kind of Economics" and the students would need to prepare differently in order to pass their state exams. However, during my informal interaction with the students, I got the impression that many students did appreciate the different approach and believed that it will in fact help them to prepare for their further exams and studies.
• Everybody I have had the chance to deal with at the Prague School of Economics has responded extremely positively. It has been mentioned several times to me that "it wouldn't have been possible to afford the same quality without the support".

Asel Isakova, (CERGE-EI Graduate Fellow, Osh University, Kyrgyzstan):
• My 95 students have been positively challenged by the courses. Despite the course difficulty, I received extremely high evaluations from them for my teaching performance. In my opinion the benefits to the students and the institution could be summarized as follows:

  • Students became more interested and motivated in the course during the period of my fellowship. This helped them to understand better the material and challenged their thinking.
  • Students could compare different ways and "models" of teaching what stimulated their critical thinking and helped them evaluate the course
  • Students became more open minded and showed independent thinking, as a greater number of students participated in discussions during classes towards the end of the courses

Georgyi Burlakov (CERGE-EI graduate fellow, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic):
• At first, students had a difficulty engaging in a 2-way communication along the lecture it seems they were used to be passive listeners in the rest of the courses they had. Moreover, they had trouble with getting along with the English terms in the beginning. However, by the end of the course, students started actively participating, by asking questions and discussing passionately the material during and after the lecture. So, finally, I would say, they liked the course.

Maria Vyshnya, (KSE Graduate Fellow, Macroeconomics at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy-NAUKMA, Kyiv, Ukraine):
• "CERGE-EI funding allowed me to improve my course drastically. I had been lecturing ‘Macroeconomic Analysis' for three years prior to getting CERGE-EI.grant. However, the course funding was minuscule. For instance, I was able to print only FOUR pages of handouts PER YEAR (including course outlines, literature, quizzes, and exams). So, I used my four-page university "quota" for printing course outlines only. "CERGE-EI funding enabled me to provide my students with printed copies of papers, which were not available electronically. Moreover, I was able to supply my students with printed copies of my lectures' slide show, so that they could listen to me during lectures rather than writing everything down. Finally, I was able to offer them quizzes at the beginning of each recitation, as well as to prepare a well thought out interim and final exams (I did have paper for all those tests!!!). Not least to mention that I got a chance to attend training on contemporary lecture methods in Prague. Previously, I've used a "blackboard-chalk" technology presuming that students take notes passively. In Prague I was really inspired by a "discussion club" method. Moreover, while lecturing in Kyiv, I realized that it could be used with 60 students as well."

Sophie Skhirtladze, (ISET Graduate Fellow, Tbilisi State University, Georgia):
• This teaching experience definitely encourages me to continue in an academic career. It made me understand how challenging and interesting it is being a teacher. I understood that teaching deepens my knowledge in the subject and makes me rediscover many new things. At the same time, I am happy to share my knowledge with a new generation, who would not have this opportunity without this fellowship.

Lasha Labadze, (ISET Graduate Fellow, Tbilisi State University, Georgia):
• The training was very important and useful because it gave me good teaching skills. Managerial Economics was a new course and I got huge experience during its development and teaching of it….Students liked it a lot. They extremely liked the new approach of seminars; they were motivated and involved in explaining materials. Teaching the new course I saw in practice that teaching needs not only knowledge but also the skills of teaching.

Maka Chitanova, (ISET Teaching Fellow, Tbilisi State University, Georgia):
• I'm trying to change students' attitude toward economics, to explain to them what this science is in reality, and simultaneously I'm trying to develop their logical and innovative thinking. And students like this. I feel they are enthusiastic and eagerly following my instructions and are interested in my opinion regarding different issues even when I am not teaching them. For example, former students, from last year, asked me now to make comments on their term projects and theses. This way of exchanging ideas between us is very helpful; I try to guide them in Economics.

Khanifa Rasulova, (CERGE Graduate Fellow, Samarkand State University, Uzbekistan):
• The main benefit for institution is that it had gained teaching materials for Labor Economics and International Economics course. Teachers get familiar with new design of the courses. Students benefited by receiving knowledge in a new interactive way. Instead of writing lectures they had to solve problems with teacher and understand economics not by memorizing definitions but by solving problems and understanding graphs.

Nelli Gasparian (ISET graduate fellow, Russian-Armenian Slavonic University, Yerevan, Armenia)
• After graduation from the International School of Economics in Tbilisi I realized how different the education is from what I had in Yerevan. I realized all weak sides of the education that we inherited from the Soviet Union and wanted to support the promotion of new teaching methods. Therefore I decided to contribute my time and resources for teaching more students in Yerevan. By teaching I also kept promoting my knowledge and was well aware of the very recent developments in the field of economics. Granting me teaching opportunity provides with a chance to teach students with the [modern] methods, which is a strong basis for preparing good specialists in the field of economics. This will be a very good investment for the local Universities and for the whole Republic in general.
• The course would be available to my students without the Fellowship Program, since they already had a professor on Econometrics. However the teaching methods and methodologies were very theoretical and the University was lacking practical sessions.
• This teaching experience highly encourages me to continue in an academic career. I myself studied in a university where similar teaching methods were used and I understand the importance and the value of good teaching methodologies which are very important for becoming a good and competitive specialist. In Armenia there still are universities which continue teaching by using old teaching methods. This innovative approach is making considerable difference and I would like to use it and be one of those who will impact on the change of the teaching methodologies in Armenia.

Pavel Vacek, (Cornell Ph.D CERGE-EI Fellow, Institute of Economic Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University, Prague):
• This brand new course [Antitrust Economics] filled a gap in economics education at the Institute. Before, students had theoretical background in microeconomics and economics of industrial organization. However, they lacked skills that would help them to find jobs in economic consulting. My courses prepares students for positions in a) private economic consulting firms like NERA, CRA International, Corner Stone, RBB, etc. b) in academia and c) in state institutions like Competition Authorities, Regulatory Authorities, etc.

Zviad Zedginidze, (ISET Graduate Fellow, Tbilisi State University, Georgia):
• By the great support of PEER fellowship I have been able to devote my time to work with students. I have tried not only to increase their knowledge in the field but also to increase their awareness in the policy implications of macroeconomics and empirical research and the role it plays in the contemporary central banking. I believe that my endeavor i) helped students to improve their knowledge in macroeconomic theory and econometrics ii) greatly increase their motivation for further studies in the fields and iii) make students exposed to western style of teaching. The latter is especially important for preparing the students for graduate studies in good programs of Economics in Georgia and abroad. Aside from teaching activities I also assist to local faculty in designing appropriate syllabuses and preparing teaching material including main textbooks, supplementary readings, datasets etc.

 

Fellows:Institutional Reform

Zvezda Dermendziava (CERGE-EI Graduate Fellow, University of Economics, Prague):
• The course I have been teaching at the Prague School of Economics had only been available in Czech. Besides being allowed to change the language of instruction, I was given the freedom to rewrite the course syllabus, choose the main text and the material to be covered during the semester. This substantially changed the course in comparison with the original offered in Czech.
• Although my institution has been extremely flexible and tried to accommodate all the changes I found necessary to introduce, sometimes those changes were in conflict with the existing system [common to skip classes for a job schedule, expected to reschedule exams, university requires three different dates for the final exam, etc.] All this has made it more difficult to offer a "standard Western style" course. However, there has been a lot of understanding from both institution and students, and I believe it will only get easier to teach such a course.

Asel Isakova, (CERGE-EI Graduate Fellow, Osh University, Kyrgyzstan):
• The members of the Faculty of Business and Management and its administration were very friendly and tried to make my stay as pleasant as possible. They were very helpful in organization of the courses and were willing to share their experience with me.
• Faculty members benefited from attending my classes and our discussions of different problems related to the course organization, different approaches to teaching and working with students.

Branislav Saxa, (CERGE-EI Graduate Fellow, Anglo-American College, Prague):
• I believe the institution welcomes this initiative and the cooperation of relevant people was absolutely perfect.
• I think that the teaching standards I observed during my study at CERGE-EI can increase the quality of teaching in many places in transition countries. Having a teacher come from CERGE-EI can be very beneficial for students as well as for the institution, by setting relatively high standards.

Dorota Kowalcyzk, (CERGE-EI Graduate Fellow, Ural State University):
• I was approached by more junior faculty members to discuss their research ideas. Their need for self-development, exchange of ideas and doing research was quite astonishing. The faculty members’ efforts seem to be encouraged and supported by the Dean, who also actively seeks to establish long-term relationships with other universities and research institutes. Teaching was rewarding and inspiring. My experience shows that both the students and the faculty are willing and able to greatly benefit from the teaching fellowships. Moreover, I believe the Department of Economics is open to all sorts of future cooperation."

Katarina Svítková, Ph.D. (CERGE-EI, Ph.D.2007, Dean, Business Administration, Anglo-American College in Prague):
• Under the Fellowship, I prepared accreditations for two new bachelor programs (Marketing and Communications, and Strategic Marketing – emphasis on quantitative methods used in marketing), received reaccreditation of the existing bachelors program (Business Administration), and received accreditation of two new masters programs (Business and Law in International Markets, and Quantitative Asset and Risk Management). We also started cooperation with Chapman University in offering their MBA program here in Prague.
Also, I would like to say that the Fellowship was an important factor in making me decide to take the position, and to stay."

Inna Čábelková, Ph.D. (CERGE-EI Ph.D.2001, Faculty of Humanities, Charles University:
• I continued to be a chief of the Qualification Department within the Faculty, which enabled me to promote the theoretical and practical sides of economics among the undergraduate students of humanities even more."

Ádám Szentpéteri (CEU Graduate Fellow, Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary):
• Universities in Hungary have very limited resources to attract and retain talented professionals in the face of financially more lucrative offers both from the business sector, and the academic sector of developed countries. The Fellowship helps keeping young teachers in the Hungarian academic sector to the benefit of students.

Nelli Gasparian (ISET graduate fellow, Russian-Armenian Slavonic University, Yerevan, Armenia):
• I myself studied in a university where similar teaching methods were used and I understand the importance and the value of good teaching methodologies which are very important for becoming a good and competitive specialist. In Armenia there still are universities which continue teaching by using old teaching methods. This innovative approach is making considerable difference and I would like to use it and be one of those who will impact on the change of the teaching methodologies in Armenia.

Comments from Fellows' Supervisors

Dan Šťastný, Vice- Dean for Academic Affairs. University of Economics, Prague:
"The teaching jobs the PhD candidates from CERGE-EI took up at the Prague University of Economics have made it possible for us to substantially lift the quality of the economic instruction. Moreover, they conveniently contributed to our plan to widen instruction in English language. Despite natural reluctance of our students to sign up for more difficult courses (which foreign language courses of necessity are), the classes of Zvezda and Gurgen were appreciated for the rigour and, from our students' perspective, novelty of the substance. There is no way we could secure this level of quality in teaching without the generous support of these activities through CERGE-EI."
And in 2011:
After cooperation with CERGE-EI [Teaching Fellows], which has lasted for more than three years, we already observe an enormous progress in knowledge of our graduates (and a corresponding rise in quality of their essays/theses).Both language- and content-wise, the courses taught by CERGE-EI PhD candidates markedly improve the quality of instruction at our institution. We have thus every reason to be interested in further cooperation, particularly with some of the students we know by now.

Ondřej Skripnik, Director of Institute of Bachelor Studies, Faculty of Humanities, Charles University, Prague:
"In the Czech Republic it is not easy for a state university to find and retain a person who is well educated in economics and able to teach economic theory on the undergraduate level... Our students will most probably be employed in non-economic or non-business sphere, a sphere where the knowledge of economics is abysmal. I consider it to be very important to convey the basics of economic knowledge to this group of people since they are the current and future voters in the Czech Republic, and economic education will help them to make better voting choices and will lead this country to better future."

Jakub Novotný, Head of the Department of Economics at Jihlava College of Polytechnics (VŠPJ):
"The main benefits of the [CERGE-EI Teaching Fellow] to teaching economics at VŠPJ are: • Demonstration of contemporary approaches to Microeconomics; • New experience with a different type of work with students – including a higher continuous student work load than the one at VŠPJ; • New experience with form and level of support materials provided for students, and • New contacts."

Professors Gocha Tutberidze, Deputy Dean for Teaching, and Jochen Zimmermann, Advisor to the Record for Quality Assurance and Teaching Innovation at Tbilisi State University (Ivane Javakhishvili University) and Dean of the Business School at the University of Bremen in Germany:
"The fellows have all done an outstanding job…. Their input helps greatly in modernising the teaching as their expertise allows us to firmly establish and use modern textbooks …. Overall, reforms without their input would be unsustainable. The fellows are crucial to the reforms and thus have a much larger impact than the students that they teach: the innovations in micro- and macroeconomics affect all 750 students in one beginner’s cohort." (Ed. Note: The five Teaching Fellows from ISET at Ivane Javakhishvili University in Tblisi in 2008-09 had a total of 261 students in their classes – a not insignificant number – but their supervisors saw their influence affect over 700 students.)

Mgr. Richard Zika, Ph.D., Director of Bachelor Degree Program. Faculty of Humanities, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic:
"To my experience very few good university level teachers of economics are able to teach bachelor degree students with majors in Humanities and [also] would agree to teach given the salary we can afford to pay them. Even more difficult is to find a university level teacher who is able to combine economic knowledge with knowledge from other social sciences, as this is the aim and comparative advantage of the faculty of Humanities. Therefore we welcome any support [that] would enable Inna Cabelkova to stay with us rather than to look for much better pay in private sector. "In the Fall semester 2008 we had more than 700 first-year students who, according to our regulations, have to enroll [in an] introductory economic course. Thus, the benefits from Inna’s teaching were enormous, and it was a lot of work to do. Besides that she taught, in small groups, chapters in economic reasoning. Inna managed to do the job in an excellent way, and this is another reason why I strongly support her being a CERGE-EI Teaching Fellow and receiving extra financial support."
And in 2010:
"Nowadays it is not easy to find a good teacher of economic courses at the university level especially at public universities. Good economists have other options at the labor markets. Those options in most cases are much more financially attractive for them comparing to the state regulated salary public university is able to offer. Therefore we are happy, that Inna has got the fellowship which will motivate her to stay with us. Next year we plan to launch new bachelor degree program in English in which Inna will teach economic courses. This will enable students, who originate from the countries other than the Czech Republic, to benefit from our courses and our program. In this respect we are expecting more students from the countries of the former Soviet Union or other countries of the region. We are happy, that Inna's education at CERGE-EI enables her to teach excellent economic courses in English."

Professor Nodar Khadury, Head of Macroeconomics, Tblisi State University:
"The cooperation with the Teaching Fellows program…is definitely an important gain for my University. Sophiko and Zviad have brought new spirit to the department…they have brought modern skills and attitude to the students of our institution. Thanks to them we can educate our best students with modern text books and teaching material….Thanks to the [fellowships] we managed to attract English-speaking [teachers], which otherwise would have been very difficult….Let me take this opportunity to express my gratitude towards the donors and assure that the resources are spent in a very effective way that ultimately brings positive results."

Prof. Jamlet Janajghava, Dean of the Economics and Business Faculty, Tblisi State University:
"I am happy to see the new attitude toward economics that she has established among the students. Ms. Chitanava is teaching first year students and the difficulty is that the students at this level face the science of economics for the first time. So it has crucial importance to explain to them what economics really is. I can tell with no doubt that she has coped with this challenge successfully….I am very grateful for the Teaching Fellowship Program. The Program is significantly raising the standards of education in economics and will facilitate our students to become more competitive on the international level. Once more I would like to thank you for your support to make our teaching better."

Sergey M. Kadochnikov, Dean of the Department of Economics, Ural State University, Ekaterinberg, Russia:
"The course ‘Applied Econometrics for International Economics’ was especially relevant in the context of the courses taught at the department. [Olga’s] participation in the teaching process allowed her students to attain a higher level of research.[Dorota’s] particular strength is the ability to involve students into active work; readiness to provide consultations any time students face questions, both on-line and in person, and encouragement for students pursuing their research. I am strongly interested in inviting all three Teaching Fellows to teach again."

Diana Latnak, Assistant Dean of Economic Faculty, Immanuel Kant State University, Kalingrad, Russia:
"I want to give high praise of Dmitriy Vorobyev’s activity in our University. He used European education technologies and demonstrated a high professional level. It was an excellent experience for our students to have a part in lectures and seminars given by Dmitriy. I want to note some benefits of this program:

  • Students got additional knowledge because problems of public economy are not considered enough in our education programs,
  • Students had an opportunity to use their English,
  • Students met with new teaching methods,
  • Students became acquainted with opportunities of education in Czech Republic,
  • It was an important step for cooperation between our Universities.

We wish to thank Dmitriy and you and for this effort and hope for further cooperation."

Levan Tsagareli, Dean, College of Arts and Sciences, Ilia State University, Tbilisi, Georgia:
"I believe that our university and our students found immensely beneficial to collaborate with Mr. Bakari Baratashvili during the fall semester of 2010 in the framework of the Teaching Fellowship Program….[The] Teaching fellow manages to actively engage students in his course and is open to questions and discussions. With his motivation and rich past experience in teaching different economics courses Mr. Baratashvili enhanced the positive academic atmosphere among our students and at the University.
"We know the aim of the Teaching Fellowship Program is to contribute in the process of implementing western teaching standards in our country. This is indeed so in the case of our university and on behalf of my department I am happy to confirm the positive assessment of the performance of the Teaching Fellow at Ilia State University."

Péter Pete, Head of Economics Department, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary:
"The Teaching Fellowship program can help us raise the standards of education. It complements the otherwise relatively moderate salaries of junior faculty members, making the academic career in Hungary more attractive. Through the additional funding the fellows can become more motivated in teaching."

Elguja Mekvabishvili, Head, Department of Principles of Economics, Faculty of Economics and Business, Tbilisi State University:
"I would like to emphasize that we extremely like both [Teaching Fellows], as they contribute to our department to the maximum extent….It is already 10 years I’m the head of this department and I can say with confidence and undeniably that they are among the best teachers I have ever had….Maya Grigola and Maka Chitanava are outstanding members of our department and they deserve respect of other department members and students. They are actively participating not only in the teaching, but also in the administrative process.
"I want to thank those donors who enabled these young priceless persons to teach at TSU. And at the same time I want to underline that it is ISET’s merit that they have such a good level of knowledge and teaching skills." Iuri Ananiashvili, Head of Econometrics Department, Faculty of Economics and Business, Tbilisi State University:
"[The Teaching Fellows]…have demonstrated excellent performance standards. TSU appreciates the efforts they have put into their classes to transfer their western education in Econometrics to students. They have demonstrated outstanding class and time management skills. The successful performance of their students demonstrates that the fellows have worked hard to make the material well understandable for the class. Besides, they acquainted students with modern computer packages in Econometrics that further deepened students’ interest towards the subject. All three fellows are highly respected among students and other faculty as good professionals."

E. Kharaishvili, Head of the Depoartment of Microeconomics, Faculty of Economics and Business, Tbilisi State University:
"Teaching Fellows joined us in 2008. The idea of creating Elite Groups was born …due to the existence of Teaching Fellowship program. Several groups were formed, consisting of students with the highest GPAs and strong knowledge of the English language. The Microeconomics Department got a chance to increase the level of economics education by means of ISET graduates, being able to teach students using English language textbooks.
"I would like to thank the Fellows program, which helped us to discover these young, brilliant people. Students often come to me and provide exceptionally positive feedback about their teachers, underlining their high level of education, erudition, teaching skills and interaction with them. Students express gratitude to their teachers for creating the environment where learning is fun. Fellows are always willing to spend extra time in classes, expressing readiness for additional advice and communication with class."

Prof. Nodar Khadury, Head of Macroeconomics Department, Faculty of Economics and Business, Tbilisi State University:
"The cooperation with Mr. Davit Khantadze in the framework of the Teaching Fellowship program is definitely an important gain for my university….The teaching Fellow, with his high motivation, enhanced the positive academic atmosphere at the university and helped us in the implementation of western teaching standards."

Martin Gregor, Director, Institute of Economic Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University:
"I would like to express thanks to the CERGE-EI Foundation for supporting two of our faculty members, Prof. Janda and Dr. Vacek. The support has largely helped to reshape our curricula so that the courses supported now reflect the most recent trends in economics. Prof. Janda significantly contributes to the quality of teaching at the Institute of Economic Studies. His classes are conducted in English and based on internationally recognized textbooks. The classes contribute to the quality of our program which prepares students for competitive positions in the commercial sector, government institution, and for admission to the top-ranking PhD programs in Europe and America.
"Dr. Vacek is with us for just a short time but is now fully responsible for three courses. Antitrust Economics is a brand new course with real-life merger cases offering a substantial breadth of material. International Finance has been completely redesigned and now constitutes a popular option for many students. His work in the course Economics and Law has also received positive response from the students.
"The [Fellowship] support allows both Prof. Janda and Dr. Vacek to devote a significant part of their capacity to improving teaching standards in our school.

Minas Arakelyan, First Provost, Odessa National Law Academy:
"We encouraged the development of the new course in English for students in law, which would touch the issues of global economic developments….The scientific community and students of the University mentioned the high level of [the Teaching Fellow’s] proficiency and knowledge of the subject and appreciated her contributing to the raising of educational standards"

Sergey Kadochnikov, Dean, School of Economics, Chair, International Economics, Ural State Gorky University:
"[The Teaching Fellow’s] teaching at the Faculty of Economics contributes to the development of research and scientific skills, as well as provides an opportunity to increase mobility of our graduates on international level. [The Fellow’s] input to the development of the master’s programme structure makes it possible not only to increase the academic duration of the core courses but also substantively improve the level of teaching, efficiently use modern achievements and best practice of economic science. The methodological tasks, types of the educational work, approaches to students’ work evaluation elaborated by [the Fellow] have improved the quality of the educational process. The courses were useful for research and teaching work of academic faculty…and attracted considerable interest. The courses materials will be used to improve related courses. We are looking forward to further successful cooperation."