EurasiaNet
January 16

Many parents, professors and students have reached consensus that Uzbekistan’s schools and lycees do not prepare citizens to pursue higher education. As Uzbekistan faces criticism for lacking openness – most recently after a series of border closures – the weakness of its educational system may hamper the country’s economic prospects.

Uzbekistan’s education underwent reform in August 1997, when Parliament passed an agenda called the National Skill Formation Program. The new law aimed to replace the Soviet 11-year school term with nine years at school plus two or three years at a college or lycee. The colleges or lycees were to work like community colleges, to prepare for university or institute study. President Islam Karimov, after reelection in August 1999, ordered a curriculum with staff and supplies to go into effect by the next month. The network of schools has not developed across the country. According to Tavakal Abdukhalikov, head of Karakalpakstan’s Specialized Secondary Education Directorate, 20 cities or districts around the country have shifted to the new system, accounting for about 40 percent of children. "The number of such institutions is not sufficient," says Abdukhailikov.

Even for students who find places in the new network, educational conditions are often poor. Uzbek high school students are often reluctant to go to colleges or lycees. Some of them resist the opportunity because they see it as too expensive. Grants or scholarships often get caught in bureaucracy, schools do not offer free board, and some professional programs cost more than others. The most severe expenses, say students, are unofficial. According to them, students and faculty at colleges and higher education institutions have already developed a system of soliciting and offering bribes for cheating or special consideration on exams.

"December is a good season for us: examination season starts and we make good money," says Ms. Nagima Japakova, a lycee professor in the Karakalpakstan capital of Nukus. According to Japakova, underpaid professors have established a system of soliciting bribes for As and Bs. Full-time pay for college professors barely covers the cost of utility bills, teachers say, so few of them devote themselves to their classes. "We earn some additional money by tutoring: some $150-200 per child per year," says Japarova. "So we rarely have any time or inclination to work hard at the lycee."

In addition, according to Shaukat Iskhakov, institute professor in Bukhara, the newly established colleges do not have adequate teaching staff, textbooks and curricula to prepare children for further studies at higher education institutions or for the beginning of sustainable careers.

Some parents have expressed fondness for the old Soviet system. Olga Naumova, who lives in Samarkand, was not the only parent to transfer her daughter from a new "nine-year + college" school to a school with the old 11-year system. "Children should continue studying for 11 years at school like it used to be," says Naumova. She based her decision, she says, on the experience of neighbors who had sent their children through the new system.. "Discipline at such institutions leaves much to be desired," Naumova says. "Teachers don’t care." Naumova also complained that studying at the college gave graduates "no guarantee" of finding good jobs.

Some students say that teachers fail to impose discipline or coordinate the school day. "In September, when the new academic year began, we were split into several groups," says Munira, a medical college student. "Our group had to study in a neighboring kindergarten; the others were accommodated in the polytechnic and other places and even in the open air. Many failed to appear for their lessons. Teachers did not care."

This lack of space reflects another shortcoming in the new educational system. Since Karimov’s 1999 order, Uzbekistan’s government has allocated meaningful amounts of money for building and reconstructing colleges and lycees in the country. Some observers estimate that the government furnishes 500 million Uzbek soms (roughly $450,000 to $600,000) per each college or lycee. Even contractors, though, express frustration with the system’s inefficiency. Claiming non-payment, contractors often leave construction sites.

"We won in a tender for building a medical college in Jizzak," says Dmitry Khmain, head of the private Darbat Construction Company. "We were to be paid 610 million soms for the work. A considerable portion of the money was never paid. We could not pay salaries and our workers left. We failed to complete the construction by the new academic year."

Despite these complaints, the government still plans to convert all the country’s high schools to the "nine-year + college" system by 2009. Officials say they plan to equip all colleges and lycees with modern textbooks, equipment, and, most vitally, qualified teaching staff. Karimov has also promised to solve the problem of delayed student stipends.

Even if officials solve administrative problems, professors worry that they will struggle to teach professions that are in demand in the Uzbek and international markets. Today, many graduates of the republic’s educational institutions are qualified cooks, electricians, sewers and even accountants and managers who join the multi-million-strong army of the unemployed. As questions about Uzbekistan’s openness persist, the scope of opportunity the country provides its students seems questionable.

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