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OECD Review of Education in Kyrgyzstan

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OECD Review of Education in Kyrgyzstan VOCATIONAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING IN THE KYRGYZ REPUBLIC CURRENT SITUATION AND PERSPECTIVES WORKING DOCUMENT Eduarda Castel-Branco December 2009 The contents of this report are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Training Foundation or the European Union. Preface This report was prepared in the framework of a review of the education sector in Kyrgyzstan in April 2009 by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), whose final report includes a chapter on vocational education and training (VET) based on this report, but with a more compressed structure adapted to the length and approach of the remaining chapters of the OECD review. Ian Whitman suggested that the European Training Foundation (ETF) publish this comprehensive report on VET in its entirety, as, in his opinion, it is of value both to Kyrgyzstan and to international readers interested in VET developments in Kyrgyzstan. The ETF is grateful to Ian Whitman for the valuable support provided during its mission in Kyrgyzstan and also to Johanna Crighton and John Coolahan for their review of the VET chapter in the OECD review of education in Kyrgyzstan. Acknowledgements are also extended to Mary Canning, Mihaylo Milovanovitch, Myako Ikeda and Aisuluu Bedelbaeva. The ETF also thanks all those entities that kindly shared information and views during and after the mission, in particular the National Statistical Committee, the Ministry of Education and Science, the State Agency for Professional-Technical Education, the State Migration and Employment Committee and the Centre for Education Assessment and Teaching Methods. A special word of recognition is addressed to the Forum for Educational Initiatives for its crucial support in terms of collecting a substantial proportion of the policy and legal documents used in the analysis. The author of this report is Eduarda Castel-Branco, who was Country Manager for ETF activities in Kyrgyzstan in 2009. 2 Contents PREFACE................................................................................................................................................ 2 LIST OF ACRONYMS............................................................................................................................. 4 1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY..................................................................................................................... 5 2. MACRO-ECONOMIC OVERVIEW ..................................................................................................... 9 3. EDUCATION AND TRAINING DATA AND MAIN TRENDS............................................................ 11 3.1 VET within the legal frame of the education system ................................................................ 12 3.2 Educational attainment............................................................................................................. 14 3.3 Key VET data ........................................................................................................................... 15 3.4 Financing .................................................................................................................................. 23 3.5 Careers, study choices and links with skills anticipation .......................................................... 27 3.6 PISA 2006 ................................................................................................................................30 4. FINDINGS FOR EDUCATION AND LABOUR MARKET OUTCOMES .......................................... 31 4.1 Key labour market and employment data................................................................................. 31 4.2 Labour market indicators by education level............................................................................ 32 4.3 Labour supply at different education levels.............................................................................. 34 4.4 Urban-rural skills distribution .................................................................................................... 35 4.5 Youth unemployment................................................................................................................ 36 5. POLICY AND INSTITUTIONAL ANALYSIS..................................................................................... 37 5.1 A VET policy crossroads .......................................................................................................... 37 5.2 Policy framework ...................................................................................................................... 39 5.3 Variability in VET system quality .............................................................................................. 49 5.4 Reforms .................................................................................................................................... 49 5.5 Institutional capacity and mandates ......................................................................................... 50 6. ADULT EDUCATION AND TRAINING............................................................................................. 52 6.1 Challenges................................................................................................................................52 6.2 Policy ........................................................................................................................................ 54 6.3 State Migration and Employment Committee programmes ..................................................... 56 7. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS ................................................................................ 58 7.1 Dilemmas of the change process and vision............................................................................ 58 7.2 Effectiveness of the change process........................................................................................ 59 7.3 Conclusions and recommendations ......................................................................................... 61 ANNEXES ............................................................................................................................................. 66 Annex 1. Organigram of the State Agency for Professional-Technical Education ........................... 66 Annex 2. Licensed Adult Education and Training Providers............................................................. 67 BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................................................... 68 3 List of acronyms ADB Asian Development Bank CIS Commonwealth of Independent States EBRD European Bank for Reconstruction and Development EQF European qualifications framework ETF European Training Foundation EU European Union GDP Gross domestic product GTZ Gesellschaft fuer Technische Zusammenarbeit/German Technical Cooperation ICT Information and Communication Technologies ILO International Labour Organisation IMF International Monetary Fund ISCED International Standard Classification of Education KGS Kyrgyzstan som (1 KGS = 0.02 EUR (approximate values, January 2010)) NGO Non-governmental organisation NQF National qualifications framework OECD Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development PISA Programme for International Student Assessment USAID United States Agency for International Development USD United States dollar (1 USD = 0.72 EUR (approximate values, January 2010)) VET Vocational education and training level VET I Vocational education and training level I (initial) VET II Vocational education and training level II (secondary) 4 1. Executive summary The issue of quality in education has gained new importance and visibility in national political debate in the Kyrgyz Republic in 2009. The performance of the education sector, cited as a national reform priority by the president of the country (re-elected in mid-2009), represents a multifaceted challenge. The results of the 2006 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) depicted very poor country performance in science, reading literacy and mathematics, revealing a substantial and widespread problem of poor quality basic education. This fact is confirmed by poor performance in the subsequent education levels, high secondary vocational and higher education dropout rates and a widely recognised problem of inadequate human resources, despite a growing number of students and higher education graduates. A government endeavour to reform education is underway under the National Education Project, which aims to improve the quality of education by tackling the basics: purpose and functions, financing, teaching and management capacity, curricula, methods and excellence in education. The very succinct documents available show poor interactions with the reinforced Ministry of Labour and Social Protection that administers initial VET, managed by the State Agency for Professional-Technical Education and employment and migration policies and programmes, managed by the State Migration and Employment Committee until the recent restructuring of October 2009. International analysts underline the relatively high public spending on education in Kyrgyzstan, with a gross domestic product (GDP) spend in the range of 5%-6% in recent years. Steady growth in this spend has not been sufficient to compensate for the years of low expenditure, especially because the poor efficiency of spending is partly responsible for the low quality
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