Higher Education in Uzbekistan

After independence in 1991, Uzbekistan became the master of its own way of economic and social development and had the task to construct a democratic state and open civil society, a socially-oriented market economy. All this entailed a radical reform of the education system in Uzbekistan. Education had to be reoriented towards meeting the common national interest and ensuring competitiveness in the world market. Uzbekistan became a member of the international community and was keen to develop a modern system of education. The importance of the reform of the education system should be considered in the context of the demography of Uzbekistan : the population of the Republic of Uzbekistan is more than 26 million 485 thousand people (by the 4-th quarter of 2006), over 11 million of young people are less than 17 years of age. This is 42% of the population. On 29 August 1997 President Islam Karimov signed the Law on the establishment of a “National Programme for Personnel Training”, which provides a long-term strategy for strengthening education, the development of a continuing education system and reinforcing the multi-level higher education system. The programme is a unique one, which sets out the fundamental principles of the reform strategy, outlines the problems and sets their priorities. The aim of the programme is the fundamental reform of education system, the complete reversal of its ideological routine, elaboration of the national educational system for the training of highly qualified specialists up to the level of advanced democratic states. It is stated in the programme that one of the tasks to achieve the above aim is the development of a mutually beneficial international co-operation.