Secondary Schools and Inequality: Navigating the Fragmented Landscape of Educational Choices in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan
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Secondary Schools and Inequality: Navigating the Fragmented Landscape of Educational Choices in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan CAP Paper 214, January 2019 Aigoul Abdoubaetova researches the growing gap context of this diversification in educational opportunities in Kyrgyzstan. She is and fragmentation of schools. The paper sets out to answer Programme Manager of the MA in Politics and Security the following specific questions: at the OSCE Academy in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, and has over nine years of professional experience working in 1. How do parents in Bishkek navigate the fragmented higher education administration. Previously, Aigoul landscape of the second- worked for a number of non-profit organizations ary education system and specializing in the areas of youth, international adoption, choose schools for their and other social issues. She holds an MA in International children? 2. To what degree do parents’ Studies from the University of Oregon and a BA in educational choices reflect Foreign Languages from Osh State University. and reinforce growing so- s of 2018, Kyrgyzstan’s country that used to be a Soviet cio-economic inequality in GDP per capita was republic where citizens had more a society that is undergo- reported to be $1,221.1 or less equal status and equal ing significant transforma- A tions? Yet the cost of tuition at some access to high-quality public private schools in the capital city, education. Bishkek, tells a very different To answer these questions, we story: annual tuition is $23,800 Over the past two decades, sec- employed a combination of qual- at the QSI International School,2 ondary educational opportu- itative and quantitative methods. $14,155 at the ESCA Bishkek nities in Bishkek have become Our main group of informants International School, $13,000 at more diversified, due both to included parents of schoolchil- the Oxford International School, the growing number and vari- dren aged 7-17 who attend pub- and $11,000 at the Cambridge ety of private schools and to the lic and private schools in Bish- Silk Road International School.3 division of public schools into kek. Religious private schools Parents of students at these different categories depending were not included in the study. schools pay between 3.5 and 7.5 on the quality of education they We surveyed 115 parents using a times the average yearly salary on offer. This paper explores grow- questionnaire and supplement- education alone. These numbers ing inequality in accessing and ed this with 22 in-depth inter- are illustrative of growing obtaining secondary education views. The survey included ques- socio-economic inequality in a in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, in the tions on parents’ motivations CAP Fellows Paper 214 1 Figure 1. Number of private schools in Kyrgyzstan Source: National Statistical Committee ty. Finally, it draws conclusions and strategies for choosing their Of the 22 parents interviewed, and provides recommendations. children’s schools, level of satis- 13 sent their children to public faction with their choices, alter- schools and 9 to private schools. Overview native/complementary ways of acquiring knowledge, and their In addition, we interviewed the Private schools emerged in Kyr- child’s post-secondary plans. principals or top administrators gyzstan in the mid-1990s as a re- of eight private schools in or- sult of neoliberal reforms. Figure Of the 115 parents who partici- der to gain greater insight into 1 shows the growth in the number pated in the survey, 79 percent the work of private schools. The of private schools in post-Soviet had children in public schools, sample included high- and me- Bishkek: from 19 (1 percent of all 19 percent in private schools, dium-cost private schools. Fi- schools) in 1995 to 114 (5 percent) and 2 percent in both. These nally, we conducted interviews in 2017. The number of students 115 parents completed surveys with twelve experts in the field who attend these schools has risen about the educations of 175 chil- of education, who provided ana- from 0.3 percent to 2.5 percent of dren (87 boys and 88 girls). The lytical insights into our research all students.4 More recent sourc- majority of parents who partici- questions. We also drew on pri- es state that there are now 187 pated in the survey were women vate schools’ websites and so- private schools in the country,5 (95 percent). Most of them had cial media pages, as well as on- most of which are located in Bish- higher education degrees (78 line news sources about schools kek. While older private schools percent). Twenty-eight percent and online forums for parents. in Bishkek were often established of informants lived in the city in the buildings of former kin- center, 47 percent in the resi- The paper proceeds as follows. dergartens and other municipal dential micro-districts, and 25 First, it provides an overview of buildings, in recent years several percent in the urban periphery. the state of secondary education new, elite-style private schools Sixty-seven percent of partici- in Bishkek and classifies exist- have been constructed. These pants indicated that that they had ing school choices. Next, it ex- new elite schools are located in an average income, 25 percent plores parental motivations and the southern part of Bishkek, higher than average, 2 percent strategies in choosing schools, where many of the city’s wealthy high, 2 percent lower than aver- before engaging in the wider and privileged families live. age, and only 1 percent very low. debate about the link between education choices and inequali- CAP Fellows Paper 214 2 Private schools in Bishkek are ing quality of education, the short- ly concentrated at the elemen- very heterogeneous, with a di- age of qualified teachers, and the tary level. Evidently, therefore, verse mix of prices and services.6 poor maintenance of buildings.7 there is a serious need for more Many of them have excellent in- Due to high internal migration to schools in Bishkek—but only two frastructure and facilities, small the capital city and urban popu- state schools are built per year.9 It class sizes, and better-paid teach- lation growth in general, public has become common practice for ers (see Figures 2 and 3). schools in Bishkek have become first-graders to start their school extremely overcrowded.8 Accord- year in classes exceeding 40, and The boom in private schools is ing to Chinara Isakova, Bish- in some cases even 50, students10 occurring in the context of acute kek’s 97 schools currently have a (see Figure 4). This problem is shortages and the deteriorating 76,500-student capacity, but the mostly observed in Bishkek and quality of public schools. So far, actual number of students is dou- Chui region. Due to overcrowd- very little has been done by the ble that. The number of school ing, 1,657 of Kyrgyzstan’s 2,262 state to address the myriad issues students is growing by around public schools have two shifts facing public schools: the declin- 10,000 students per year, most- and 159 elementary schools have Figures 2 and 3. Classrooms in the Cambridge Silk Road International School and Oxford International School Source: “Gid Kaktus. Chastnye shkoly Bishkeka. Usloviia i tseny,” Kaktus Media, May 25, 2018, https://kaktus.media/doc/338956_gid_kaktus._chastnye_shko- ly_bishkeka._ysloviia_i_ceny.html Figure 4. Overcrowded classes in a public school in a novostroika in the Muras Ordo housing development, Bishkek Source: “Shkoly Bishkeka. Po chetyre uchenika za partoi,” Azattyk, May 24, 2014, https://rus.azattyk.org/a/26568113/ p2.html CAP Fellows Paper 214 3 Figure 5 and 6. The deteriorating state of School #44 in Bishkek Source: “Zdanie shkoly 44 v Bishkeke nakhoditsia v avariinom sostoianii,” Reporter Akipress, March 26, 2014, https://reporter. akipress.org/print:28010. a flexible schedule.11 could collapse completely in the private tutoring/private learning coming 10-15 years.14 centers. In this section, we dis- Obviously, in such large class- cuss each category and summa- es, students do not get enough Yet the outlook for public schools rize them in a table. attention from teachers. This is not altogether bleak. There are is compounded by the fact that a few high-performing “elite” The first category of private the average monthly salary of a public schools (gymnasiums and schools includes elite interna- schoolteacher is 1.3 times lower lyceums) that achieve top results tional private schools with tuition than the national average, with on the NST,15 a national mer- fees above $10,000 per year: QSI the result that few people are it-based selection system that International, Cambridge Silk interested in becoming teach- tests the knowledge and skills Road International, ESCA Bish- ers and existing teachers end up of secondary school graduates kek International, and Oxford In- weighed down by ever heavier applying for government schol- ternational. These schools boast teaching loads. arships to local universities.16 international accreditation and High-performing elite public international curricula different Infrastructure is another issue. schools are seen as prestigious from the curriculum approved by Having mostly been built in the and are difficult to get into. Even the Kyrgyz Ministry of Education Soviet period, these schools are families that can afford to send and Science. All classes are taught now in need of serious renova- their children to private schools in English, primarily by interna- tion (see Figures 5 and 6), yet may prefer these schools because tional faculty but also by local fac- the annual budget that a public of their reputations and excellent ulty with solid English language school receives from the Min- academic outcomes. skills. These schools have excel- istry of Education and Science lent infrastructure, facilities, and for such purposes is extreme- Landscape of Secondary security, as well as small class siz- ly low: 20,000 soms ($285).12 Educational Opportunities es.