Future Azerbaijani journalists will have the opportunity to study at some of the world’s leading universities in an attempt to improve training standards in the profession, the chairman of the Azerbaijani Press Council said today.

“Negotiations to provide opportunities for education in the world’s leading universities for Azerbaijani students – future journalists – are underway,” Aflatun Amashov told journalists.

Amashov said the country needs media specialists with foreign-language skills to help improve Azerbaijan’s image abroad.

The Press Council also intends to introduce testing to identify skills needed for entrants into journalism training.

“The education of journalists is improperly organized in Azerbaijan. Unfortunately, exams to identify [the necessary] abilities were canceled after the application of a test version of the exam,” he added.

Amashov said that research showed that up to 70 percent of journalism students were not interested in the profession and said that they were studying journalism by happenstance.