Countries and Regions

NUMBER 56, SUMMER 2009

Turkmenistan: Fixing Decades of Damage

Martha Merrill
Martha Merrill is associate professor of higher education at Kent State University. She worked on university reform issues in Kyrgyzstan from 1996 to 2001. E-mail: mmerril@kent.edu.

The Niyazov Years: Decimation
During the Niyazov years, the educational system in Turkmenistan was decimated. As David Lewis, the former director of the International Crisis Group’s Project in Central Asia has written, “Turkmenistan is one of the few states in which a deliberate policy of reducing education has been used to produce a politically compliant and educationally backward population.”

Niyazov cut the number of years of elementary and secondary school from 10 to 9, thus ensuring that no locally educated students were prepared for higher education outside of Turkmenistan. Given that students had to spend hours memorizing the Ruhnama, Niyazov’s eccentric vision of the Turkmen past and Turkmen virtues, and that they were regularly taken out of school for weeks and even months at a time to help with the cotton harvest, less than 9 years formed the actual time spent on academic subjects. University studies were reduced from 5 to 2 years, followed by 2 years of practical work required before the degree was awarded. Recognition of degrees earned abroad was rescinded, meaning that holders of such degrees could not work in their fields in Turkmenistan. The Academy of Sciences and other research institutes, the sites of graduate education, were closed. Thus, the only people available to become university faculty had attained just 11 years of education, much of which was dogmatism.

In addition, Niyazov interfered directly with university governance. At times, he himself would name rectors and vice rectors and set enrollment numbers for universities. Under this regime, the number of seats available was reduced to less than half the number during Soviet times—one reason that admission and degrees themselves reportedly are for sale. Turkmen was required as the language of instruction in most schools and universities, even for citizens who were ethnic Russians or Uzbeks. These actions have not only undermined education during Niyazov’s presidency but will also do so into the future. People who attended school during his era are ill-prepared to teach the next generation the skills needed for international integration in the 21st century.

Reforms Now Under Way, but . . .
Given this destruction of the education system, as well as other forms of repression, observers of Turkmenistan watched with both trepidation and hope when Niyazov died in 2006. His successor, Berdymukhammedov, promised reforms, and although some have taken place, substantially more is needed, particularly in the areas of faculty development and access to information.

The reforms of the last two years include returning elementary and secondary education to 10 years and higher education to 5 (i.e., the Soviet model for higher education). The two-year work requirement for receiving a higher education diploma has been eliminated. (The extent to which this requirement has permeated the consciousness of the younger generation, however, was evident in the questions posed to a Harriman Institute delegation during a March 2009 visit; students regularly asked if work experience is one of the requirements for admission to Columbia University.) The number of first-year places has been increased by 825 nationwide, but the demand for university admission exceeds capacity by a factor of five; by the Ministry of Education’s own estimates, 20,000 applicants competed for 4,000 openings last year.

Lack of Resources and Faculty
However, adding back years of education and additional first-year places makes the problem of adequate teaching materials and knowledgeable instructors even more acute, especially outside the capital. Additionally, universities have announced new specialties, in fields ranging from international law to Chinese, although the resources and professors to teach these fields barely exist, especially since most students speak only Turkmen. Given a lack of knowledge of the world outside or an abundance of political caution, current faculty are unable to prepare students for international interactions. For example, a political scientist from Barnard and a law professor from Columbia explained to an auditorium of students and professors the global ranking systems that various organizations employ to evaluate business opportunities and the international legal agreements that Turkmenistan must join to sell its gas. In response, an elderly professor rose and implied that while the ideas presented were interesting, in Turkmenistan they did not apply, because international businesses would have guarantees from the president and nothing else was needed.

Additionally, although Berdymukhammedov signed a decree on June 12, 2007, restoring the Academy of Science, the extent to which it is functioning is debatable. Without it and other research institutes, no higher education beyond the newly resurrected five-year diploma exists, and, thus, no graduate training for future faculty is available. The current president also has directed the minister of education to draft a resolution recommending how diplomas earned abroad might be validated in Turkmenistan. Restrictions on education abroad have been loosened somewhat, and thousands of students reportedly are seeking higher education in Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and elsewhere. However, due to the prior 9-year elementary and secondary system, those seeking higher education outside of Turkmenistan almost invariably must start at the preuniversity level.

Substantial Problems Remain
Although the tentative steps Berdymukhammedov has taken to reform higher education may move in the right direction, they are not sufficient to provide the country with graduates who can interact on a world stage. Progress will require much more extensive reform—including substantial attention to faculty development, graduate education, and academic freedom issues.

[Online] Available: http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/soe/cihe/newsletter/Number56/p23_Merrill.htm