NN38, February 2007
Technical and Vocational Skills Development
THE PATTERNS OF VET REFORM IN KYRGYZSTAN
By Anar Beishembaeva, Forum for Educational Initiatives, Kyrgyzstan
KeywordsVET reform, Kyrgyzstan
Summary
This article describes how the VET reform in Kyrgyzstan has been influenced by multiple factors in the context of the break-up of the Soviet Union.
****
Currently VET programmes are delivered in 112 initial and 64 secondary VET schools.
The VET reform in Kyrgyzstan started as a response to the changing development conditions, and has been influenced by often opposing factors. On the one hand, these were the factors of globalization and the market-oriented, democratic development. On the other hand there were other factors that derive from the non-market, autocratic system.
Some policy decisions responded to the objective driving factors, while others attempted to adjust reforms to the existing system that largely retained old structures, relations and norms. On the one hand, VET was recognized as a driving force for future development while, on the other hand, it in fact became a shelter for socially deprived youth.
Political and economic changes and their impact on the social area were the main factors that pushed the reforms in VET.
The loss of economic links and the collapse of production based on large enterprises caused by the break-up of the Soviet Union were some of the factors. Small and medium businesses with a new pattern of production appeared. The overall structure of the economy changed, shifting from industry to trade, agriculture to services. All these factors required a new pattern for the reproduction of personnel.
There were also social factors that had an impact on current VET, in particular the high levels of unemployment and poverty. Given the large proportion of youth in the demographic structure of the country, and the high levels of poverty and unemployment, the government had to use VET as a tool for social security. VET was assigned a task of training and retraining the unemployed, with government funding covering salaries, student scholarships and meals. Access to training has been declared a priority in the national education policy.
There were also other factors that shaped the VET reforms in the country.
The state policy was to preserve the system and give the schools enough freedom for them to survive in the situation of scarce funding. Multi-source funding was introduced by law. It had its side-effect as well - more focus on production than on education services, perhaps inevitable in the situation of excess labour supply, and of a lack of demand for training.
While VET schools are mainly located in the regions, most are funded from the national budget. Because of such a financial arrangement and centralized administration, the schools have not become part of the regional development, and are losing regional stakeholders as a potential resource for the school development.
Several donors have been investing in VET and piloting innovations, without considerable system-wide changes. This is partly because the donor activities are often initiated only on donors? initiatives and objectives, partly due to the existing system of VET administration, and partly due to the level of available capacity.
There are two leading supervising ministries in the country; initial VET is under the Ministry of Labour, secondary VET is under the Ministry of Education, and there is no coordination and complementarity between them.
As a result, initial VET schools benefited from significant attention to labour and employment issues, and the donor funding allocated to the area of employment and training. Secondary VET schools were left without any attention and support at all, and were only surviving thanks to scarce government support and their own generated income. The reforms would have been more efficient and effective, if both sub-systems had developed under an integrated policy, had joined their resources and coordinated their activities. At present just such an initiative has started with the European Training Foundation?s ?Policy dialogue? activity.
Decision-making is based on the information received mainly from statistics offices and schools. There are nearly no signals from the labour market, due to the lack of the methodology, the required funding, and the capacity of both schools and employers to collect and analyse labour market information.
Even though the schools were given some freedom in decision-making, it is still rather centralised, prevents schools from flexibly responding to rapid changes, or from creating a market for their own educational services.
Still, many schools do their best to meet the labour market requirements through introducing new training programmes, modular training and interactive teaching. They get involved in projects and start delivering services to a wider clientele. And there have been quite a number of good experiences witnessed in the country. Unfortunately, these have not been described and disseminated system-wide.
As a result of such a situation, there is a gap between research, policy and practice which should be bridged. This task requires joining efforts and clear signals from the main stakeholders, the government and employers in the first place. All the above factors need to be considered and addressed to effect progress.
Back to full contents of NORRAG NEW 38.
Download the full issue of NORRAG NEWS 38 in pdf.