Beginning next year, Uzbekistan’s education system will be a bit different. Ninth form students in Tashkent and some other regions will no longer attend normal schools, instead being moved into either academic lyceums or vocational colleges for their final three years of school. (Lyceums already included a twelfth year, but this is new for students in the vocational schools.)
IWPR reports that this change stands a good chance of boosting corruption in Uzbekistan’s school system. Those with the money will pay to get their children into the more prestigious academic lyceums, putting them on track for university.
Pictured above is the academic lyceum at which I taught. Compared to the school in which I did my practicum and the other schools (and Institutes…) around Navoiy, it was a very nice place. It was cleaner, better kept up, and had far more serious students than other schools I’d visited. In short, it was a fairly good place for Uzbekistan’s better students.
However, it was pretty obvious that many of the students did not belong there. I had some stellar students that absolutely deserved to be in the school. I had some mediocre students that really tried. Perhaps English just was not their strong subject. And then I had a sizable chunk of students who were absolutely abysmal. They did not try, nor did they care. They just showed up to class to fill time and likely payed to take care of their grades at the end of the semester.
All of these students were, by virtue of their attendance at the lyceum, the cream of the crop. No cotton for them because they are the future of Uzbekistan! And the price of admission now, according to IWPR, is a mere $600-$800. Once the option of normal secondary education is gone, that will likely increase.
This post was written by...
Nathan Hamm – author of 2040 posts on Registan.net.
Nathan founded Registan.net in 2003. He was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Uzbekistan 2000-2001 and received his MA in Central Asian Studies from the University of Washington in 2007. Since 2007, he has worked full-time as an analyst, consulting with clients on Central Asian affairs, specializing in how socio-cultural factors shape risks and opportunities. Follow him on Twitter or drop him a line.
{ 26 comments }
Nathan, Thank you for sharing your memories. Of course, we have corruption in American education–from highly selective private day care centers to legacy admissions or donor-driven research programs in the Ivy League. We look pretty dirty to outsiders ourselves. For example: One Uzbek graduate student on an exchange in the US told me she was shocked when she arrived at her prestigious university, only to see buildings named after rich alumni who had given large donations–but who never made any intellectual, artistic, or scholarly contributions. In her home country, things are named after people who really did something to inspire–like Alisher Navoi, Hamza or Pushkin.
Something to think about…
Did this student call it corruption and say we look dirty? Or is that how you are labeling her surprise?
Because I’m not the least bit convinced there’s all that much to think about.
She called it “corruption” and said after one semester at an American university that it seemed to her that our system was MORE corrupt than in Uzbekistan…
Did she see anyone paying for their grades? And did she notice a very large chunk of the student body who did no work, seemed not to be prepared, yet still got in to the university?
It really only sounds like what she was basing her accusation on is that buildings are named after donors. And I can see that if you come from a place rife with corruption, you might think that sponsorship is the same thing. They are, however quite different. Anyhow, naming rights are what they are, and I think they have gone a bit over the top. But in general, it seems as if our university buildings are named most often after individuals important within the university community. And I kind of like that. It’d be fairly bland if every university had a Shakespeare Hall, a Clemens Hall, etc.
Anyhow, the big difference is the money constantly going back and forth in the Uzbek (and other former Soviet) school system. Sure, you can get helped out in admissions here if you’re a legacy, but for the most part, only qualified people make the cut. And once you’re in, you cannot just buy your degree
The situations are entirely different.
Nathan, She was shocked by the whole system: One school for rich kids (private), another for working class and poor kids (public); one admission system for rich kids, another for scholarship kids; and also by the attention to athletics, sports, alumni and fund-raising. You may think our system looks like a meritocracy–but to some outsiders, I’d say it looks bad. The grade-buying seems like penny ante stuff in comparison. All I’m saying is that she knows how the Uzbek system works, and knows how to judge who is really smart and well-educated by it–and can’t tell in our system who has gotten ahead because of merit, or other factors. I thought her perceptions were interesting, especially since she even thought our international scholarship programs were corrupt, and more subject to manipulation than local systems (I guess because the prize of studying in the US is bigger).
BTW, until recently UCLA didn’t name after donors. When I went there, it was Bunche Hall, Freud Hall, MacGowan Hall, and so forth. A man from Harvard came in as president went into fundraising overdrive, so now, for example, it is the “Geffen School of Medicine”. Squandering a nice intellectual tradition, IMHO…
Best of all, UCLA’s music department was in Schoenberg Hall…
I got my PhD hood in Royce Hall, named after pragmatist philosopher Josiah Royce, btw…
I’ve spoken with several returned students from both Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, and their complaints about America are the normal cultural shocks and abused freedoms.
And you know what? Good. Those are only complaints to the certain people. My time in Central Asia has given me more American pride that I’m comfortable admitting in public. The level of corruption here is completely beyond what Americans think about. Just as you, Laurence, say that she based her accusations and opinions on her own perceptions, in that same way we tend to base our own opinions on what we know.
That doesn’t make us wrong or right. What makes us wrong or right is our ability to see all the facts, and whether or not those facts are common knowledge. Anyone who compares the educational systems of Central Asia to the United States or Western Europe finds facts and statistics that say very concrete things, corruption and naming rights aside.
And my time in Central Asia has so damaged my English that I’ve forgotten how to use articles and basic grammar conventions. I need to return to the America!
Well, do you think it’s corrupt? You’re dancing around saying whether or not it is.
I know she doesn’t get our system, but I think she’s assuming that a sizable chunk got ahead through connections and bribery. (I’m assuming she was on the East Coast, which to my Northwest eyes, does come off as a more corrupt culture in which connections and social standing are incredibly important.) Perhaps her assumption was wrong?
I don’t find private schools to be all that impressive, and I don’t think I’m uncharacteristic of most Americans. I’ve never gone to one, and I can’t imagine wanting my children to go to one. In my short professional experience, prestigious universities didn’t count for much in hiring. (Probably because none of us who evaluated candidates went to those schools.) What it comes down to, in my opinion, is that there are plenty of good alternatives here for those who are good students who cannot afford to go to prestigious schools. And they can thrive at those schools and get ahead in life. You aren’t put into a position requires you to shell out heaps of cash just to get an opportunity to get into university.
And I don’t want to seem that I think that what goes on in Uzbekistan is so horrible and makes Uzbeks bad for taking part. It’s perfectly understandable, and it’s kind of the rules of the game. But almost everyone, save the slackers who take advantage of the situation by just paying for their degrees, seems to wish that the corruption could be done away with. The problem with this new reform is that it will reduce the supply of university-track education, driving up the price.
By the way, I think the naming craze in sponsorships has gone overboard. It’s not necessarily an indication of corruption, but it is a symptom of the chase for fundraising dollars. (When I did fundraising, I liked to say that my job was not to garner donations for my organization so much as it was to sell a feeling of self-satisfaction to individuals and corporations.) I’m not entirely opposed to it, but I do have mixed feelings. It’s silly that we have a “Bank of America Executive Center” here at the University of Washington. (We have building named for both of Bill Gates’s parents, but they both graduated from here and his mother was on the Board of Regents.)
Laurence, are you saying that your PhD shouldn’t be regarded all that high because it was obtained from not only a corrupt institution, but obtained in a building epitomizing that corruption?
Did you buy your PhD and not earn it? Did any fellow grad students pay their dean to get their doctorate? Of course not.
This is not only common in Uzbekistan but expected! It is almost impossible for an honest student to get through his entire program without being forced to pay a bribe at least once or twice.
No one has said that our system is perfect, but we’re talking orders of magnitude difference here, and I don’t really understand how your can put it on the same footing.
I am a former student of Uzbekistan’s top-ranking university. Never got a chance to complete my education due to what the school administration believed to be objective reason – I was too free-minded to study at the Uzbek university. But we are talking about corruption here and I won’t take time telling about my personal adventures. Let’s go back to the story.
Amazing
When I decided to enter that particular university, my dad’s close friend, 63-year old army official said he’d be washing my socks if I ever did that. Well, it took me two years of 10-hour-a-day studies, but I made it. No money, no connections involved. During the first couple of days of the school I got to know basically all students who entered the school with me. So, what do freshmen talk about when they get together? Right, — admission exams and the admission scores. You can’t imagine how shocked I was to get to know that the kid who scored third and got school scholarship did not even know how to spell the words you get to study as a third-grader. He had no idea of history and the admission exam featured 36 history questions! He neither wrote, nor read English, and guess what – the admission exam had 36 history questions. Alright, I don’t blame kid’s parents for not taking care of his education, but how on earth he scored third and how on earth he got the scholarship? The answer came within the following week – his father was a powerful government official (if I name the institution he was heading, it will too obvious, who I am talking about) and this answered my naïve questions about how he made it to the most prestigious school in Uzbekistan. Within the following half-a-year at the school, I discovered that the guy I was talking about was not alone – there were at least other 5-7 (among 70) students who could hardly remember what faculty they were studying at and all of them, very coincidentally, had got scholarships. These students would rarely show up at the school, but somehow they got their BAs and I strongly suspect they will become someones in the Uzbek government within very short period of time.
Now imagine all those kids who, as myself, studied for two years to enter the school and never entered because someone had deeper pockets, because someone had influential parents. I was lucky to get admitted, but those who stayed behind had their dreams ruined. Now think about those, who got admitted, but had to eat one kilo of potato and three loafs of bread a week to be able to pay for their education – with $50/a family income, one can hardly afford paying $500/year school fee. The worst thing about corruption is that it ruins a personality – once having faced corruption, you start to believe that it is the only way to live – and this thought is the first step in your way to becoming another corrupt person. The system feeds on uncorrupt minds.
This is very banal, but I believe very illustrative example of corruption at the Uzbek schools. My friends who studied at the other universities would tell me they would have to pull their money to be able to pass their exams. My cousin who studies at another “prestigious” school said the professor very openly told them that a student had to pay 3000 soums for “3” (the lowest grade that allows you to advance to the next semester), 4000 soums for “4” and 5000 for “5”. And the whole faculty had to pull their money, make a list of students with indication of the amount money they contributed and thus, they’d get their grades
I very much doubt that American educational system, with all of its cons, would allow anything like this.
Many thanks for that comment, Octavarium. It hits home what the problem is. Not everything is fair in the US education system, but no one has ever told me that I have to pay to excel.
Laurence, I’m curious what the background of the student you’re talking about is. Based off how you’re describing her opinions, she reminds me of some of the privileged young Uzbeks I’ve met who like to go on and on about how things are far worse here in the US.
Guys, chill out
The point is that our societies are quite distinct; they are of two different dimensions. So, don’t compare incomparable! If Americans already name schools after those fat-purse daddy boys (as I’m sure of the fact, not necessarily a common truth, that wealthy parents of lazy buggers normally donate heaps of bucks to schools or whoever in whatever purpose; or use connections and positions to educated their retarded offsprings, if you know who I mean) and Uzbeks still name educational institutions after great ancestors, there is still time to go… wait and see, that might happen in Uzbekistan too, perhaps happening – school in Samarkand where president was taught (if he was) should be of his name, I’m not quite sure though.
Another point is that not only Uzbek people who bribe everyone, use relations and blah blah blah starting from entrance examination up to graduation (in case of education, the rest is out concern here, as it would be said from kindergarten to nearly retirement) but system created and maintained by government (fish rots from its head), bunch of needless politicians and institutions, AND also International Organisations funding construction and reconstruction of colleges and lyceums. Brilliant Uzbek government should utilise those well-facilitated buildings and that’s how this genius idea came out of their bright heads (I’m not being sarcastic here, on the contrary, there is smth to learn from and study over and over again
. Schools (except few in Tashkent, prestigious ones) are in economic, financial distress. There are some tiny donations to schools too, for instance grants provided by WB or ABD for buying books and stationary to extremely deprived schools in rural areas. Perhaps I’m missing smth here, maybe during last years situation with schools financial support has been changed for better, yet it’s still nothing comparing to college/lyceums financing…
Interesting comments Octavarium!
Nomad, concerning financial distress of Uzbek schools: boy I’d love to get a crack at opening the financial books of some of these schools. Based on the relatively high costs of tuition, and the relatively low teachers salaries, I don’t understand where all the money goes. It doesn’t seem to add up, even accounting for those periodic scholarships.
Laurence, I didn’t mean to be offensive concerning your PhD, I know you must have worked very hard at it. I was just trying to make my point.
Brian, I meant normal schools from first to tenth grades…where education is free. If it wasn’t like that, then at least half of the population would be illiterate due to financial distress of population itself rather than schools. Btw, in China from this March, schools became free of charge… seems like China moves toward a bright future
Anyhow, Brian, I suppose you were saying about Universities and Institutes, where one should really pay tuition unless s/he gets scholarship (which includes tuition wave + “significant” stipend), which might be suspended if student is not able to maintain high scores… that was a case with lil.sis. (and I should say that nothing worked here, neither bribe nor connections!!!) Yet the number of students granted such scholarships are about 5% within one University.
As to your wonder about money that goes ‘somewhere’, let’s draw a picture…
First of all, you can see that many if not all, Universities were and are undergoing some construction works. Do you think that resources come from state budget only? Not really, educational institution itself is responsible for its “good-look”. Also maintenance fee: electricity, heating, gas, water and etc. + taxes paid from University budget. Besides, educational facilities are bought from own funds (unless some Donor organisation did not provide with smth like computers and other costly stuff for labs). Other related issues – different seminars, conferences, work-shops within University are organised and being paid by University itself. All in all, salary of teaching stuff is still low, but they get bonuses and allowances (out of that tuition fee paid by students) + tax privileges.
It is pathetically disingenuous that someone would compare the woes with the American education system with those of Uzbekistan. Intelligent young people in UZ would rush to the “Uzdunrobita Lecture Hall” if the teachers inside were qualified and properly paid…and thus incentivized properly to address their audience, the student body.
As for the commercialization of US education – does it ever occur that private interests are equally interested in an educated, intelligent, open-minded group of future employees, future clients, or future competitors? Is ‘enlightened self interest’ such a horrible thing? Why is it assumed that corporate funding automatically dilutes or negates the intellectual goals of the funding organizations?
It’s kind of like ChevronTexaco funding schools, student scholarships, or training programs in Atyrau or other regions of the Caspian…it’s never enough that they do it, and when they do finance such programs, they are guilty of intellectual impurity.
It’s also hilariously naive to think that all of the artists, philosophers, etc. whom are often ‘honored’ with naming their hall, university, etc. were themselves not commercially oriented in their day…include Samuel Clemens…
Nathan, I’m just saying that our system is not perfect, and before we condemn others, we should be very careful. For example, Gulanara Karimova attended Harvard University. While I am sure she is intelligent, I also believe that Harvard considered that her father was president of Uzbekistan when she was admitted. Daniel Golden has written about the corruption of US Higher Education admissions in his new book: THE PRICE OF ADMISSION: HOW AMERICA’S RULING CLASS BUYS ITS WAY INTO ELITE COLLEGES–AND WHO GETS LEFT OUTSIDE THE GATES.
My regrets for getting off-topic and following the comment string too closely. The above post by Nathan is extremely timely and relevant. The systemic issues (mentioned above) makes reform…unforseeable in the near term, and another generation is lost. It is a fact that a portion of the state budget is being used to construct more (crappy) schools, institutes, colleges and lyceums in the regions…but who will lead them, and who will occupy those schools?
On funding and schools in general, perhaps the UZ government has the same cynicism towards non-state funding for schools (like funding by NGOs for education institutions) as a few commentors above have towards privately-financed US institutions. Undue influence, I guess…
I think you’re being touchy if you think what I wrote was all that critical. It was fairly diagnostic. I don’t think the government wants the corruption, but it’s not really doing much to get rid of it. And it’s making a decision that will probably make the problem worse.
And I reject that our problems deny grounds for criticism. That’s what I like to call “the sophomore philosophy major’s folly.” That argument implies we had no grounds for criticizing the Soviet Union or have no grounds for criticizing China’s abuse of its people. (It shouldn’t be a surprise that their response is “The US has problems, so we’re not that bad.”)
Even if I did think that was a valid point, we’re talking about two totally different problems here. What Golden talks about is not exactly the same thing as what’s going on in Uzbekistan largely because going to an elite university is not so important here. The difference between Harvard students and University of Washington students is not so much intelligence or achievement as it is the stick up the ass of the former group because they are so proud of themselves. Employers here know that. About all that going to such schools is good for is getting jobs from people who went to those schools.
Nathan, I wasn’t criticizing you–I meant to comment on IWPR’s story. Frankly, corruption is not news in Central Asia, and in a way is not even America’s business. We should clean up our own affairs before we go around lecturing others on how to behave. Otherwise, we hurt our credibility.
This has nothing to do with the USSR, which was our enemy in the Cold War. I thought the US wanted to be friends with Uzbekistan. Insulting people isn’t the best way to get them to do what you want, I don’t think. Obviously, IWPR and the US government feel differently. According to their website, IWPR is funded by these US taxpayer supported organizations:
Laurence – what’s that got to do with the price of fish? that’s also some highly selective copying and pasting. Here’s the FULL list of IWPR supporters, and here’s an excerpt from their policy on institutional independence:
‘IWPR is fully transparent about its sources of funding, and maintains a diverse international base of private foundations, individuals and government agencies. This broad base has allowed us to refuse funding for any purpose beyond the development of the critical and independent press essential to any healthy civil society.
All donors – whether governmental, private foundations, or individuals – have their own interests, and it is the task of the organization to assess each project on its merits according to its mission and its values.
‘For example, we will not partner with the U.S. or any other military or with local projects closely associated with the military. Neither would we accept funding from any source that would demand any kind of editorial oversight into our journalistic product.’
Nick, Obviously, the US government would not pay for IWPR unless IWPR is doing what the US wants it to do, despite any posted boilerplate to the contrary. I have an article coming out about NGOs as a “new class” building on my CESS presentation which appeared earlier on Registan, that goes into this institutional dynamic in more detail. When the Spring ORBIS appears on newsstands, I’ll add a link from Registan so you can read the whole argument…so, stay tuned.
‘ … the US government would not pay for IWPR unless IWPR is doing what the US wants it to do, despite any posted boilerplate to the contrary …’
So why does the US government support Project Hope which, in your words, ‘is hurting American interests, leading to greater anti-Americanism, it shouldn’t be funded, IMHO.’
Different organisation, different circumstances, but according to you, one NGO is promoting US interests, one isn’t, so damned if they do, damned if they don’t.
No society is entirely free of corruption. Here in the UK plainly those born to wealthy families have a much higher chance of getting in to Oxford or Cambridge. But to claim that corruption in the UK or US is nearly as bad as in Uzbekistan is just crass. There is a point beyond which moral relativisn becomes silly.
It seems to me that a basic integrity in the public examination system is the key difference. It doesn’t matter who your daddy is or how you got in, if you really just can’t handle the subject matter you won’t get a decent degree in the US or UK. That is not the case in Uzbekistan.
Bit of a post-communist disease this – interestingly the comparative lack of integrity of many Polish universities shocked me when I was there in the early 90s. I am told they have now largely recovered.
Laurence seems to have taken his devotion to the Karimov regime to the extent of believing, not only that NGOs are evil self-serving organisations, but that Karimov’s Uzbekistan is morally superior to the US. I do hope he will take his argument to the logical conclusion and abandon the US for a nice, egalitarian Uzbek university.
Coming back to the original debate about corruption in education in Uzbekistan and the US, I think the debate depends on how narrow we define corruption. I myself went to the university in Uzbekistan, not in Tashkent but in one of the regions. It is true that students sometimes have to pay for their grades. However, it is not a 100% case. I knew so many students who chose to pay and not necessarily have to. If a student wants to work hard, he or she can study with either minimum cases of bribes or none. I could have got into one of univesities in Tashkent but I chose not to, so that my education would not be a burden for my family. After graduating and working for three-four years, I started to think about the graduate school. In 2005 I came to the US for my graduate studies. I considered myself lucky because I got into one of the top universities in the country. I am still very excited about it. Even before I enrolled in school, I knew that US universities do not have corruption and one cannot bribe the professor. I was very confident in this until I found out about the system of education int he US better. The university I am studying at is private with tuition of $35 000 per year. It is needless to say that most of the students are from at least upper middle class families. During the breaks in classes they talk about semester in London or spring vacation in Rome, etc. Each of them has very high goals after graduation. Many of undergraduates have a job months before they actually graduate. On another hand, the community around the university struggles economically. I volunteer in one of local schools and I was shocked when 5-grade kids told me they would never even dream about going to my university because they can never afford it. The picture I see is that one can get successful in this society by paying $35 000 per academic year. I know people say the admission is based on merit and only on merit. But it is the same as to say that only upper middle class people are smart which is wrong otherwise I would never get into this university. Kids (even those very talented ones) from the school I volunteer for told me they cannot afford go to my school even if they got admitted. I know earlier in this blog somebody said that there are plenty of opportunities for people from not very rich families; however, one cannot deny that the prestige of degree in US is important in one success. So, it really depends on how we define corruption…