Tajikistan Education Sector Analysis Contents Glossary ........................................................................................................................................................ 2 List of Figures ................................................................................................................................................ 2 List of Tables ................................................................................................................................................. 2 Executive Summary ...................................................................................................................................... 2 Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 3 Demographics ........................................................................................................................................... 3 Socio-economic context ............................................................................................................................ 7 Legal and policy frameworks for education ............................................................................................ 10 Legal frameworks ................................................................................................................................ 10 Policy frameworks ............................................................................................................................... 10 Structure of the national formal education system ................................................................................ 14 Rural/urban disparities ........................................................................................................................... 15 Access and transition ................................................................................................................................. 17 Enrolment ............................................................................................................................................... 17 Pre-primary ......................................................................................................................................... 19 General Secondary Education (Primary and Secondary) .................................................................... 25 Adult/continuing education ................................................................................................................ 34 Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) and Higher EducationError! Bookmark not defined. Higher education ................................................................................................................................. 33 Issues related to access and transition ................................................................................................... 36 Geographical and economic disparities ................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined. Gender ................................................................................................................................................ 38 Children with disabilities ..................................................................................................................... 40 Cost and financing ...................................................................................................................................... 41 Budgetary allocations towards education .............................................................................................. 41 Expenditures by expense type ............................................................................................................ 43 1 Expenditures by education sub-sector ............................................................................................... 44 Key fiscal reforms and challenges ........................................................................................................... 46 External Funding and Coordination ........................................................................................................ 49 Financial gap ........................................................................................................................................... 49 Cost of transition to a 12-year education system ................................................................................... 49 Quality, system capacity, and management ............................................................................................. 50 Student learning outcomes ..................................................................................................................... 50 System capacity ...................................................................................................................................... 54 Material and technical base ................................................................................................................ 55 Teachers .............................................................................................................................................. 57 Education management system.......................................................................................................... 60 External efficiency ...................................................................................................................................... 63 Economic efficiency ................................................................................................................................ 63 Summary and Recommendations for the National Strategy of Education Development ....................... 67 Summary ................................................................................................................................................. 67 Recommendations .................................................................................................................................. 71 References .................................................................................................................................................. 73 Annexes ...................................................................................................................................................... 76 Annex 1: Legal and policy frameworks for education............................................................................. 76 Glossary List of Figures List of Tables Executive Summary 2 Introduction Demographics The Republic of Tajikistan, hereafter referred to as Tajikistan, is a mountainous, landlocked, low-income country in Central Asia, sharing borders with Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, and China. It is inhabited by around 8,735,000 people1 of various ethnic groups. The majority of the population is Tajik (84.3 %), followed by a significant Uzbek minority (13.8 %); the remaining 2 % includes people of Kyrgyz, Russian, Turkmen, Tatar, and Arab origins, among others.2 The country remains primarily rural, with only around 27 % of the population living in urban centres.3 Tajikistan is a fairly young country, with 34 % of the total population aged 0-14 years old (Figure 1). Tajik is the country’s official State language, but Russian is regularly used as the language of business and is recognized by the Constitution as the “language of international communication” (Constitution of the Republic of Tajikistan, Art. II). Figure 1. Age structure of the population of Tajikistan (2016 estimates)4 Tajikistan counts a population of 8.7 million people (as of 1 January 2016), having effectively doubled since the late 1980s. The period between 2000 and 2016 saw particularly rapid growth - the population having increased by 40% in the intervening years. Owing significantly to large birth rates in rural areas, the population of Tajikistan is one of the most rapidly growing in Central Asia and the world, with its total fertility rate at 3.064 in 2015 and nominal population increase at 2.1% between 2010 and 2016. Sixty- five % of the population inhabit the country’s two largest regions: the Soghd and Khatlon oblasts. This rapid growth affected the education system, creating large demand for education that remained unmet due to the economic crisis that followed the said war. Furthermore, the education system could not recruit enough teachers, since a huge fraction of the population born before 1998, from which teachers would have been recruited, left the country en masse. 1 United Nations Department of Social and Economic Affairs, 2016 estimate. 2 Central Intelligence Agency World Factbook, 2014 estimate. 3 United Nations Population Division, 2018 estimate. 4 Data taken from EMIS; author’s calculations 3 The median age of the population is 22.3 years, and the number of working-age inhabitants (ages 15 to 64) has been increasing at higher rates than other segments of the population. In 2016, 62.5% of the population of Tajikistan were of working age. The young population is expected to generate large and stable growth in the number of working-age citizens for several decades. However, the increasing number of young people in Tajikistan demands that the economy create jobs and guarantee education for a larger number of learners. In response, the government has taken measures to reduce youth unemployment. Nevertheless, it must be noted that the share