Uzbek Graduates End Up in Bazaars

Shukhrat Turdiev might seem to have an unusual career for a college graduate with a degree in public finance.



Every day, the 21-year-old gets up at 6 am and after washing his face in icy water, pushes his handcart to the Dilkusho bazaar, one of the busiest markets in the city of Bukhara in western Uzbekistan.



There, he places his cart into its hard-won spot and stares worriedly at the horizon, waiting for his first delivery. By the time the clock strikes seven, he needs to have his selection of piping-hot bread ready for shoppers pouring into the market for breakfast.



Shukhrat stays on his feet selling bread till ten in the evening and sometimes until midnight,



Except for a few days off on major holidays, he works seven days a week for scarcely 100,000 Uzbek soms, or 80 US dollars, a month. But he still thanks God he has a job.



Thousands of other graduates of colleges – intermediate institutions between schools and universities - end up as migrant labour on building sites abroad, or at home doing nothing at all.



“Most of my friends from college went off to Russia and Kazakstan, while others are working like me or have nothing at all,” explained Shukhrat, who graduated from the Bukhara College of Banking and Finance.



With Uzbekistan’s sluggish economy creating few new jobs, white-collar posts are scarce in Bukhara.



“For sure, no one is working in banks or firms like that,” said Shukhrat.



Since they were introduced in the mid-Nineties, colleges, lyceums and other schools offering three-year vocational courses have boomed in Uzbekistan.



The government encouraged their expansion in order to meet what was said to be a growing demand for skilled workers.



At the time, the authorities staked a great deal on training middle-ranking personnel who were expected to become the driving force of a economic revival.



The colleges’ modern buildings and relatively up-to-date equipment appeared to hold out good employment prospects for those who enrolled.



The boom in specialised colleges was stimulated further two years ago by changes to the educational system. In 2006, restrictions were placed on pupils who wanted to complete a full ten-year education in the mainstream school system. The aim was to encourage them to switch in year nine to a college or lyceum for three years to complete their secondary education and acquire a specialisation.



The reforms formed part of a plan aimed at introducing a 12-year system of universal education by 2010, which the authorities say will prepare pupils better for university and work.



The education ministry says more than 100 lyceums and 900 vocational colleges now operate, offering courses to about a million people. The lyceums are intended to offer more of an academic education, while the colleges turn out budding technicians, mechanics, metalworkers, drivers, hairdressers, accountants, information technology experts, bank clerks and managers.



The authorities have claimed that 70 to 75 per cent of graduates from colleges and lyceums stand a decent chance of getting a job related to their specialisation after finishing their 12 years in education, while the rest can go on to study at university.



But this is not how it has worked out. In reality, most college and lyceum graduates appear to be settling for low-skilled and badly-paid jobs at home, or else working abroad. The rest join the army of the unemployed.



According to 2006 World Bank estimates, the overall unemployment rate in Uzbekistan is about six per cent but youth unemployment is much higher at 13 per cent. This is significant in a country where 64 per cent of the population, or 17 million people, are under the age of 30.



Experts fear the failure to put in place economic measures to absorb the flow of new college graduates condemns most of them to poorly-paid work or joblessness.



These concerns have now reached the highest authorities. At a cabinet meeting on February 8, President Islam Karimov urged ministers to put into action a state strategy for youth, drafted especially for 2008, which has been declared the “Year of Youth” in Uzbekistan.



The strategy’s main stated goals are to train young middle-ranking specialists, create a more secure job market, and protect the rights of young people.



At the cabinet meeting, Karimov said an official inquiry was needed to find out which specialisations were most in demand in the domestic market. Adjustments could then be made to close redundant departments and courses at colleges and lyceums.



“We should change the curricula of the colleges and lyceums if needed… to make sure they meet the demands of the market,” he declared.



The president told the meeting that next year, the government is to offer a million more places in vocational colleges.



The head of state seemed uneasy when speaking about the issue of unemployment among college graduates.



Observers complained that his suggested remedies failed to include economic reforms to boost trade or protect entrepreneurs. Instead, he appeared to reduce the problem to changing the content of college courses.



“Our government makes a big fuss but it takes no real steps to help our young people,” lamented Maria Iskandarova, a finance college graduate now working as a waitress in the eastern city of Andijan.



“All the attention goes on Tashkent, while other cities just get poorer and poorer. In Andijan, there aren’t any jobs for financial experts or economists.”



Maria said that when she applied for a job at a local bank, she was asked to pay a substantial amount in bribes. “I told them I didn’t have that kind of money,” she said.



After six months of fruitless searches for work, Maria ended up working at a bazaar before finding her present post in a café.



“This is decent work, and surely much better than sitting without any job at all,” she concluded.



Observers in Tashkent say the surplus of people with mid-level degrees is the result of training too many specialists in skills that are not in demand.



A university professor from Namangan said current policies in education did not respond to the realities of the market in Uzbekistan.



“We still use the Soviet system of training specialists according to a plan, whereas the state of the market itself should determine how many we need,” he said.



“The government shouldn’t try to maintain a strict monopoly over everything, including economy and education. Instead, it should give more freedom to people to do their own business.”



She continued: “Uzbeks are very hard-working and if there was… more freedom for private business, we wouldn’t be in a situation where graduates have to seek work in the retail sector.”



Other experts agree that training programmes need to take more account of the needs of the economy. Growth areas might include agriculture, which accounts for around 30 per cent of gross domestic product, and the expanding energy sector.



While Uzbekistan has vast natural resources and continues to develop its gas fields, it lacks trained specialists who can work in these areas.



Ilham Mamasaliev, a university professor from Tashkent, believes the government should work on these growth areas.



“Today, we need to give more attention to our energy sector,” Mamasaliev said.



He added that if the government focused more on training specialists in energy and agriculture, it could cut graduate unemployment and solve the country’s energy shortage at a stroke.



(Some names in this story have been withheld out of concern for interviewees’ safety.)