Education Set for Overhaul
Tuesday, 6 February, 2007
Education Set for Overhaul
Tuesday, 6 February, 2007
All five presidential candidates are vowing to reform Turkmenistan’s education policy in the run-up to the February 11 election, with acting president Gurbanguly Berdymuhammedov shouting the loudest.
Berdymuhammedov says he will re-introduce ten years of schooling and five-year university courses. He also wants to bring in foreign teachers and encourage people to study abroad.
The late president Saparmurat Niazov, who died suddenly in December, reduced the maximum length of time a child could spend at school from ten to nine years. Foreign languages, sport and art lessons were abolished, replaced by the compulsory study of the Ruhnama, the book of moral principles written by Niazov.
Niazov also dismantled teacher training colleges except for institutions that provided the most basic qualification. Innovative teaching methods were banned, university degree courses were reduced to two years, and students who had studied abroad would only have their qualifications recognised in Turkmenistan if they passed an exam on the Ruhnama.
An NBCentralAsia source based in Turkmenistan says that the country is already taking steps to reform education. Ashgabat Polytechnic Institute is reviewing its education programme and the authorities are considering abolishing the current obligation that students complete a two-year work placement before entering university.
However, the authorities will have to respond to more issues than this to truly prove their commitment to reform.
A commentator in Turkmenistan says education experts and academics have largely been driven out of the sector. “Who’s going to develop the textbooks? Education has suffered irreparable damage, making it difficult to take any steps [to improve the situation],” he said. “Who are they going to task with implementing this reform policy? The education ministry consists of people who have been deliberately destroying education for many years.”
NBCentralAsia expert Vyacheslav Mamedov is even more sceptical that reform is round the corner. He says the key problem is lack of funding, not least because the education budget has already been approved for this year. He says the additional costs will be significant, “Resources are needed to increase teaching time in the main subjects, expand the stock of books, provide internet access and recruit new teachers.”
Mamedov believes that the biggest hurdle Turkmenistan’s education system has to overcome is the lack of qualified teachers. The education system has been almost completely destroyed and it will take ten to 20 years to overcome the teacher shortage, he said.
(News Briefing Central Asia draws comment and analysis from a broad range of political observers across the region.)
