Universities to Widen Intake
Universities to Widen Intake
Universities in Turkmenistan are increasing student numbers in anticipation of a growing demand for graduates. However, NBCentralAsia analysts say no assessment has been made of the real need for different kinds of specialist skills. Meanwhile, the overall standard of higher education still leaves a lot to be desired.
On June 23, Education Minister Muhammetgeldy Annaamanov reported to parliament that because the country was short of engineers and other professionals, universities and colleges were going to increase the number of places on offer. There will be 4,000 first-year places in higher education when the new academic year begins in September, 400 more than last year.
New courses are being introduced in the areas of agriculture and economics, and universities are opening departments of international relations as well as of foreign languages – Italian, Spanish, Korean and Chinese.
Commentators in Turkmenistan say such changes are receiving a warm welcome, given the brain-drain the country suffered while President Saparmurat Niazov was in power.
Niazov ruled the country from independence in 1991 until his death in December 2006. Over that period, large numbers of professionals like teachers, doctors, engineers, journalists, people from the arts, pilots and aircraft engineers left the country in search of a better life.
At the same time, many higher education institutions were closed, the length of courses was slashed, and a lot of energy was devoted to teaching Niazov’s nation-building treatise, the Ruhnama.
“There is no one to replace them,” said one independent journalist, referring to the white-collar workers who left the country. “In the Niazov era, university training was reduced to the minimum – two years of learning theory, and two more of [on-the-job] practice. And often learning was replaced by study books written by Turkmenbashi [Niazov].”
Although the new president, Gurbanguly Berdymuhammedov, has reversed some of his predecessor’s most damaging educational policies, NBCentralAsia observers argue that there is no coherent strategy to identify and meet the need for different kinds of graduates in the job market.
One media-watcher says it is not clear why new language and literature departments are being opened when there is a crying need for mid-level technical experts, economists, and oil and gas engineers.
“There’s a catastrophic shortage of experts in the area of pipeline construction, for example,” he said. “Most of the people who are now building gas and oil pipelines have, at best, a qualification in industrial and civil engineering, or at worse have a diploma in mechanical engineering.”
An economist working in a regional office of the economy and development ministry explained that the government makes projections about manpower demands after assessing data sent in by the heads of enterprises and other institutions in various sectors.
The problem is that many of these managers have “forgotten how to think strategically”, as he put it, so their needs assessments are liable to be anything but accurate. There is no forward thinking about likely developments, the economist added.
Other commentators said there was still a question-mark over the quality of training on offer under the expanded education programme, since neither general standards nor course curricula have improved.
“In their programme, the authorities haven’t said a word about how they plan to raise the quality of teaching either for the new subjects or for the old ones; or about whether they will recruit highly qualified lecturers from abroad or just use the ones they have now, who have fallen far behind modern requirements,” said an observer in Ashgabat.
(NBCentralAsia is an IWPR-funded project to create a multilingual news analysis and comment service for Central Asia, drawing on the expertise of a broad range of political observers across the region. The project ran from August 2006 to September 2007, covering all five regional states. With new funding, the service is resuming, covering only Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan for the moment.)
On June 23, Education Minister Muhammetgeldy Annaamanov reported to parliament that because the country was short of engineers and other professionals, universities and colleges were going to increase the number of places on offer. There will be 4,000 first-year places in higher education when the new academic year begins in September, 400 more than last year.
New courses are being introduced in the areas of agriculture and economics, and universities are opening departments of international relations as well as of foreign languages – Italian, Spanish, Korean and Chinese.
Commentators in Turkmenistan say such changes are receiving a warm welcome, given the brain-drain the country suffered while President Saparmurat Niazov was in power.
Niazov ruled the country from independence in 1991 until his death in December 2006. Over that period, large numbers of professionals like teachers, doctors, engineers, journalists, people from the arts, pilots and aircraft engineers left the country in search of a better life.
At the same time, many higher education institutions were closed, the length of courses was slashed, and a lot of energy was devoted to teaching Niazov’s nation-building treatise, the Ruhnama.
“There is no one to replace them,” said one independent journalist, referring to the white-collar workers who left the country. “In the Niazov era, university training was reduced to the minimum – two years of learning theory, and two more of [on-the-job] practice. And often learning was replaced by study books written by Turkmenbashi [Niazov].”
Although the new president, Gurbanguly Berdymuhammedov, has reversed some of his predecessor’s most damaging educational policies, NBCentralAsia observers argue that there is no coherent strategy to identify and meet the need for different kinds of graduates in the job market.
One media-watcher says it is not clear why new language and literature departments are being opened when there is a crying need for mid-level technical experts, economists, and oil and gas engineers.
“There’s a catastrophic shortage of experts in the area of pipeline construction, for example,” he said. “Most of the people who are now building gas and oil pipelines have, at best, a qualification in industrial and civil engineering, or at worse have a diploma in mechanical engineering.”
An economist working in a regional office of the economy and development ministry explained that the government makes projections about manpower demands after assessing data sent in by the heads of enterprises and other institutions in various sectors.
The problem is that many of these managers have “forgotten how to think strategically”, as he put it, so their needs assessments are liable to be anything but accurate. There is no forward thinking about likely developments, the economist added.
Other commentators said there was still a question-mark over the quality of training on offer under the expanded education programme, since neither general standards nor course curricula have improved.
“In their programme, the authorities haven’t said a word about how they plan to raise the quality of teaching either for the new subjects or for the old ones; or about whether they will recruit highly qualified lecturers from abroad or just use the ones they have now, who have fallen far behind modern requirements,” said an observer in Ashgabat.
(NBCentralAsia is an IWPR-funded project to create a multilingual news analysis and comment service for Central Asia, drawing on the expertise of a broad range of political observers across the region. The project ran from August 2006 to September 2007, covering all five regional states. With new funding, the service is resuming, covering only Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan for the moment.)
