In January 2008, government officials in Turkmenistan reiterated their commitment to education reforms and announced a 46 percent increase in budgetary spending on schools and universities. These steps come on top of a 40 percent increase of educational spending in 2007. These public announcements also intensified heated debates about the state of education in Turkmenistan and the direction of the reforms: should the reforms be oriented toward open private initiatives and fee-based education (the American market-oriented model) or should the education system remain subsidized and state-supported as in north European countries?

BACKGROUND: Turkmenistan entered independence with a strong commitment to radically reform its education system. Indeed, already in May 1993, the government launched the Bilim (Knowledge) program, significantly revising the education system at school and university levels, introducing new curricula and completely de-Sovietizing educational institutions. All Soviet ideology-charged subjects were removed and replaced by those that emphasized Turkmenistani national identity, national pride and strengthened the national idea. In addition, the new Turkmen script based on the Latin alphabet replaced the old Cyrillic-based script. However, the education system remained under firm state control.  

Such drastic changes could not but stir substantial controversies and intellectual battles. One camp of local experts, which included government officials, argued that the strength and fundamentals of the national education traditions were preserved. To the envy of neighboring Afghanistan and culturally close Pakistan and India, the literacy rate in Turkmenistan has been about 97-98 percent and the school system has covered all school-age kids without discriminating girls. They also proudly claimed that all children were taught within a secular school curriculum and that no radical Taliban-style medresehs (Islamic schools) appeared in the country in the 1990s, in the sharp contrast to Afghanistan and Tajikistan.

Another group of experts, including foreign organizations, were very critical of the changes in Turkmenistan’s education sector. Among other things, they claimed that the reforms included measures damaging the quality of education, such as reduction of secondary schooling from ten to nine years, and higher education from five to four years, including two years of formal education at a university and two years of “internship at a workplace”.  In addition, this camp strongly criticized the new structure of the curricula and selection of subjects. They also felt that the introduction of Turkmen language as the main language of instruction at all education institutions was too speedy.

For a short while, however, this education system worked in the post-Soviet environment, reflecting the economic model adopted by the state. In sharp contrast to other countries in the region, especially Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan decided to maintain state control over the national economy, rejected mass privatization, and prioritized the development of the industrial and agricultural sectors following policies that the World Bank calls import-substitution industrialization, by supporting and subsidizing local enterprises. This education system provided enough graduates to meet the job market demands, as some Soviet era enterprises were closed or significantly downsized, and few new ones were opened. Government officials defended the advantages of their education reforms, with statistical data that indicated that most of the workers in many sectors of the national economy, including construction, transportation and food processing, were locally trained.

But eventually, economic development in the country created a significant mismatch between the supply and demand in the labor market, which peaked in the early 2000s. The educational system has changed little during the twelve years between 1994 and 2006, as very few new subjects were added to the school curricula and practically no new faculties and disciplines were added to the university programs. In the meantime, the economy experienced huge structural changes, especially during the last three to five years, thanks to the hefty surge in world prices for Turkmenistan’s energy resources.

IMPLICATIONS: The realities of the twenty-first century posed formidable challenges to Turkmenistan’s education model and system, which struggled to respond to new demands and new social and economic environments. The rapid structural changes and double-digit economic growth during the last few years, fueled by sky-high world prices for energy, stimulated the creation of a significant number of new white-collar jobs and swiftly increased the demand for highly qualified specialists trained in fields new for Turkmenistan, such as western-style accounting, audit, banking, international arbitrage, contract law, etc. Second, the rapidly increasing size of the national economy and its complexity created a shortage of highly qualified top- and mid-level corporate and government managers with training and expertise in running large multimillion-dollar projects and multibillion-dollar public enterprises and corporations, and various sectors of the economy. Third, the increasing complexity of the national economy pressed for a quick adaptation of modern forms of communications, information technology, internet and intranets for effectively running and coordinating the work of various state agencies, regional and local administration and enterprises.

By 2007, the shortages in national cadres became quite serious. The increasing engagement with the international business community, and rapid changes in the national economy, especially as the government promised further opening of the national economy for private initiatives and international competitions, will severely augment the issue of the scarcity of qualified professionals.

In order to meet growing economic challenges and improve the effectiveness and efficiency of both public and private sectors of the national economy, there is hence a need to conduct deep education reforms in Turkmenistan. This should most likely be done by both increasing state support for education and opening some windows of opportunity for private competition and initiatives.

CONCLUSIONS: At the ministerial level, newnn priorities need to be identified, while  new faculties and disciplines are needed at vocational colleges and universities in order to prepare highly qualified professionals, especially for the new growing sectors of the national economy.  This would include the development of new curricula with inputs from leading foreign universities and international consultants. The government might also need to spend more resources on strengthening human capital in the educational system by increasing salaries, conducting additional training and retraining of educators, and boosting the prestige of the profession in order to keep the best cadres and to attract new talents to the field. Turkmenistan’s education system would benefit greatly of a study-abroad program similar to Kazakhstan’s Bolashak (Future) program, which would send the most talented young Turkmenistani students to study at top universities around the world. The Ministry of Education may also consider allowing national universities to have more independence in attracting private funding for research and to let them enroll small groups of fee-paying students in order to create a competitive environment at higher education institutions.

AUTHOR’S BIO: Rafis Abazov, PhD, is an adjunct Assistant Professor at the Harriman Institute/SIPA at the Columbia University (New York). He is author of the Historical Dictionary of Turkmenistan (2005) and The Culture and Customs of the Central Asian Republics (2007). In fall 2007 he traveled to Turkmenistan to research education reforms in the country.