The Higher Education System In Uzbekistan

Дата публикации: Jun 19, 2017 12:9:33 AM

The advancement of higher education is one of the priority areas of the Strategy for Actions. The Program for the comprehensive development of the higher education system for the years 2017-2021 adopted last week was not only a logical continuation of the Program for the modernization of the material and technical base of higher educational institutions and fundamental improvement in the quality for training of specialists realized in the past five years, but also gave unprecedented impulse in scope to the reforms.

Will build more

Within the framework of the previous five-year program, construction and installation works were carried out at 202 sites in 25 universities. In accordance with the new program, construction, reconstruction and repair are planned in 180 facilities of 48 higher educational institutions. The target lists include educational and scientific-laboratory buildings, sports facilities and objects of social and engineering infrastructure.

53 higher educational institutions will be gradually outfitted with cutting-edge teaching and laboratory equipment; interuniversity scientific laboratories will be established in seven universities. For comparison, in the last five-year period only 202 training laboratories were equipped, and now there are 400.

It is noteworthy that for the first time targeted development programs were separately approved for each higher educational institution. At the same time, conditions will be created to increase the number of students.

Training of specialists to grow

Recently, great attention was placed on enhancing the system for preparation of specialists on the basis of economic sectors needs. Proceeding from this, the admission to such educational fields and specialties as engineering, production and construction raised from 23% to 33.2% of the total. Updated state educational standards and curricula for the training of specialists in higher education, as well as retraining and advanced training of teachers were introduced. This work will continue in the future.

At the same time, the total quota of admission during this whole time remained practically unchanged within the limits of 56 thousand entrants. In the next five years, it is planned 18% increase in the total quotas of admission rates. This process will be put into practice step-by-step with the construction of new academic buildings.

Teaching opportunities to be enhanced

Previous years are singled out by large-scale works to better the system of retraining and advanced training of teaching staff. A fundamentally new system represented by general education and industry centers was formed in this direction.

In the forthcoming stage of progress it is necessary to intensify the role of the Istedod Foundation in this work. In the near future a set of measures for its advancement will be elaborated. The Fund's activities will be aimed at securing a steady increase in the level of professional skills of teachers of higher educational institutions, including through the expansion of their training, upgrading of skills and internships abroad. The work to involve the foreign specialists in the educational process will be brought to a qualitatively new level.

Each university of the Republic established partnerships with the leading specialized foreign scientific and educational institutions of the United States, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Italy, Russia, Japan, South Korea, China and other countries, and this fact is of extremely great significance in the process of its development. On this basis it is provided to attract annually at least 350 foreign highly qualified teachers and scientists to the educational process in the domestic universities. The invited specialists will contribute to the modernization of higher education in the framework of modern world trends and broaden the horizons of both teachers and students.

Quality control

Improvement of the quality control system of educational services will be another important direction in the development of the education system. One of the units of the State Testing Center under the Cabinet of Ministers was previously involved in this. Currently, a state inspection is being established to monitor the quality of education.

The volume of financial resources to be spent in 2017-2021 for the realization of the Program will be amounted to more than 1.7 trillion soums (currency rates of CB RU from 05.05.2017, 1$= 3734.91soums), of which 1.2 trillion - for the construction, reconstruction and overhaul of educational and laboratory buildings, gyms and student dormitories, over 500 billion soums - for fitting out with educational and laboratory equipment, furniture and inventory, creating interuniversity laboratory complexes for joint use, and developing information and communication technologies.

(Source: «Uzbekistan Today» newspaper)