05.04.2022

On April 5, the President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev chaired a videoconferencing to analyse the effectiveness of reforms in the public education.

The human capital development is one of the seven priorities of the Development Strategy of Uzbekistan. At the meeting held on January 28, 2022, the issues in this area were discussed and many of the objectives were identified.

Over the past two months, the responsible officials have visited all regions to analyse the problems on the ground. It was revealed that there are extremely low indicators of the quality of education, the potential of teachers and the admission of graduates to universities at 852 schools of the country.

The advanced methods have been implemented at presidential, specialized, and private schools. However, the biggest problem of other schools is the obsolete teaching methods. There are no initiatives to introduce modern teaching methods into schools.

Despite the fund allocation to equip schools with computers, the work in the Republic of Karakalpakstan, Andijan, Jizzakh, Kashkadarya, Namangan and Tashkent regions is slow. The quality of education at the schools of remote areas is unsatisfactory.

It is well-known that the councils on school education reform were formed at the beginning of the year. The chairmen of local councils are the khokims (governors) of regions, districts and cities. Therefore, khokims of regions with a low level of education were issued a warning.

The President has announced a nationwide project to retrain school teachers on the basis of new methods.

According to this new system, all school teachers will be trained in line with a new methodology in the next 3-4 years. To this end, the National Training Centers will be established in each region to educate teachers in new methods. The most qualified foreign specialists in the exact and natural sciences shall be involved.

In each region, a team of coaches will be organized to improve the qualifications of local schoolteachers. The coaches will be paid a salary bonus of up to 100 percent.

By the end of the year, khokimiyats (governor’s offices), together with the Ministry of Public Education, shall begin to introduce the advanced methods in at least 20% of schools in each district and city. An additional US$100 million shall be allocated to implement this new system.

Besides, the Institute named after Abdulla Avloniy shall be reorganized into the National Education Center and united into a joint system with the Tashkent State Pedagogical University.

In general, the system of teaching new methods will begin with the National Education Center and Tashkent State Pedagogical University. The university will be incorporated into the Ministry of Public Education and will become the basic institution for training and retraining school teachers in the country.

The pedagogical institutes operating in the regions will gradually be separated from universities and turned into independent educational institutions.

At the meeting, a special attention was paid to the education of the youth. The objective is to develop a new concept to radically improve the spiritual environment of schools.

The need to review the requirements of advocates for spirituality at schools, the appointment of people with supreme authority at a makhalla (the local neighbourhood community area) and society, and the encouragement of exemplary students and parents was pointed out.

At present, 120 schools in the country operate at third and fourth coefficient. Thus, the number of students greatly exceeds the accommodation capacity. The president gave instructions to improve conditions at such schools.

It was noted that by the beginning of the next academic year, 960 schools will be provided with computer classes, and 740 will be reequipped.

It is planned to adopt a special program to renew more than 5 thousand computer classrooms. For this purpose, 200 billion Uzbek soums will be allocated from the national budget and another 200 billion Uzbek soums from local budgets.

The Ministry for the Development of Information Technology and Communications was instructed to offer special preferential tariffs for schools, to increase the speed of the Internet at schools up to 100 Mbit per second, according to the number of students.

Either education or the school environment is greatly impacted by principals. Thus, it is necessary to introduce a system of certification of school principals from the new academic year. From now on, the candidates for the position of a principal will be selected through this system.

The President has emphasized the need to develop teaching of natural and exact sciences. It is envisioned to organize schools with a focus on natural and exact sciences based on 193 educational institutions. The khokims (governors) were instructed to renovate these school buildings and create all conditions.

At the meeting, the ministers, khokims and school principals expressed their opinions and made suggestions.