Ref 4. Tajikistan ESA 310519 - incl bibliography.docx

Tajikistan Education Sector Analysis

Contents

Glossary List of Figures List of Tables Executive Summary

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 people[footnoteRef:1] 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.[footnoteRef:2] The country remains primarily rural, with only around 27 % of the population living in urban centres.[footnoteRef: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). [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.]

Figure 1. Age structure of the population of Tajikistan (2016 estimates)[footnoteRef:4] [4: Data taken from EMIS; author’s calculations]

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.

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 of youth (ages 12 to 24) in the population has decreased from 50.7% in 2007 to 41.3% in 2016.

Notwithstanding, the pace of population growth in Tajikistan is slowing. The UN Population Division (UN, 2017) estimates that Tajikistan's population will reach 14.5 million by 2050. The age-specific fertility rate (ASFR) for Tajikistan has declined on average across all age groups by 7.7 % between 2010 and 2015, reaching 67.8 births per 1,000 women (UN, 2017). The total fertility rate (TFR) will fall within the replacement level of 2.1 births per woman only after 2050. Demographic trends indicate that the net reproduction rate (NRR) is steadily declining over time (1.7 between 2000-2005, 1.6 between 2005-2010 and 1.5 between 2010-2015) and the net population growth rate has also steadily gone down mostly due to immigration. Yet, despite these slowing rates, the growth of young population is expected to continue, which positions school with a unique challenge to maintain enrolment rates in pre-school and primary educational institutions, especially in rural areas given relatively high TFR, ASFR and NRR estimates.

Historically, girls are encouraged to marry, abiding by societal norms and sometimes financial pressures of their respective families. Divorces are on the rise (from 6,019 in 2010 to 8,346 in 2015) and the average duration of marriage is 8.8 years according to latest data from 2015, significantly lower than the average of 11.3 years ten years ago. Nearly a quarter of all divorcees had at least one child at the time of separation, and living in a household with divorced parents tends to adversely affect children’s education.

Due to labor migration, school attendance is sensitive to income and in particular remittances, where it is universally high in primary (1-4) and falls as students move to higher grades (5-11) (Mirzoev, 2017). This reinforces the common view that poverty and financial vulnerability are regarded as the determinants of attendance in general secondary education. Children also report missing school largely because of illness, paid labor, and household work. In particular, school-aged girls in rural areas are least likely to further their education beyond basic education in comparison with other population groups in Tajikistan. In some regions, school-aged girls are put under pressure not to attend school in favor of undertaking domestic work, due to increased male labour migration.

The significant regional variations in births and migration rates is catalyzing demographic shifts within the country. Despite the most recent economic slowdown, beginning in 2015, many residents continue to migrate from rural to urban areas (e.g., from GBAO or Khatlon to Dushanbe) due to better employment prospects, wages, and public service provision in the latter. As a consequence of this rural flight, school enrolment rates have increased in urban areas and hence decreased in rural areas. Such migratory movements have a huge impact on the distribution of educational opportunities in Tajikistan. Migratory trends between 2007 and 2015 are summarized in Table 1 below.

Table 1. Migratory trends in Tajikistan, 2007-2015[footnoteRef:5] [5: Table taken directly from Mirzoev, S. 2016. Tajikistan Joint Sector Review Education Sector Synthesis Report. Dushanbe, Tajikistan.]

Emigration (per '000 immigrants)

International migration also has a major impact on demographic shift in Tajikistan. Although there is no consensus on the number of labor migrants, evidence from the International Organization for Migration (IOM) indicates that over 1 million Tajik citizens work outside the country, predominantly in seasonal low-productivity and low-paid occupations in the Russian Federation. A typical Tajik migrant worker is a relatively young married man who has secondary education and has a family living in a rural area. Often, he is not employed prior to migrating, and ends up working in construction, trade, housing and cleaning services, agriculture, or maintenance. These trends differ significantly from migration patterns globally, where roughly half of the migrants are women (UNDESA, 2013). In the case of Tajikistan, rural women in some cases are forced to take up the hard physical labour that would otherwise be done done by men who have migrated (Malyunchenko, 2015). In recent years, Kazakhstan , Ukraine and a few other countries has become another destination for migrant workers from Tajikistan, likely due to more flexible migration regulations that came with the establishment of the Eurasian Economic Union in 2015 as shown in the figure below. Although Tajikistan is not an EaEU member state, its labour market is deeply integrated with the Russian Federation’s. Rapid increase in the working-age population is believed to have contributed to increasing male labor migration from Tajikistan, but more recent data indicates that slowing business activity in Russia led to a contraction in the overall number of emigrating labor and volume (and value) of remitted incomes during 2015-2016.

Figure 2. Tajikistan’s leading migration destination (2013)

Source: UNDP 2015 calculations, based on World Bank data (for regular migrants).

The Listening2Tajikistan Survey found that 53 % of 3,000 surveyed families reported at least one labor migrant which demonstrates significant dependency on the Russian economy and remittances (World Bank, 2017a). Households with at least one parent who has migrated abroad are more financially vulnerable; such household setup positively correlates with child labor (World Bank, 2017a). In turn, children who must work to support their families often have poor attendance in educational institutions, as they are more likely to enter the informal labor market at the expense of schooling hours. Therefore, the link between migration and school dropout rates is significant; girls from migrant households are likely to complete fewer years of schooling, and boys are more likely to drop out altogether once their migrant parent stops sending money back home.

The return of a potentially large number of labor migrants due to the slowing economy in Russia may arguably benefit female-headed households with one migrant parent abroad and potentially reduce out-of-school children, but it also runs the risk of saturating Tajikistan’s domestic labor market, which has an insufficient number of jobs to absorb returning migrants (Mirzoev, 2016).

Socio-economic context Tajikistan is a low-income economy with a relatively low human development score. Human development can be measured along three dimensions: a long and healthy life, being knowledgeable and having a decent standard of living. In 2017, the country was assigned a Human Development Index (HDI) value of 0.650, registering the lowest HDI value amongst the post-Soviet states in Central Asia and the southern Caucasus region. Its weakest scores fall under standard of living, but tends to meet its neighbors in quality of health and education. Figure 3 below shows the HDI values in the said post-Soviet states.

Figure 3. HDI values (2018) for post-Soviet states in Central Asia and the southern Caucasus region

When Tajikistan’s HDI value is adjusted to account for inequality, it drops to 0.562. Amongst the aforementioned post-Soviet states, Tajikistan also has the highest percentage of its population living below the national poverty line (at 29.5%). A comparative graph is found in Figure 3 below.

Figure 4. Percentage of population living below the national poverty line, select post-Soviet states[footnoteRef:6] [footnoteRef:7] [6: Data from Asian Development Bank, Basic Statistics, 2019.] [7: Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, 2018 data; others, 2017 data.]

Inequality in Tajikistan has a marked geographical dimension, with rural households disproportionately affected by poverty. A 2016 joint report, developed by The World Bank, UNICEF, and the Tajikistan Agency on Statistics (TAJSTAT), revealed an almost 10 % gap in poverty incidence between children in urban and rural households (World Bank, UNICEF, & TAJSTAT, 2016). This gap is illustrated in Figure 4 below. However, since the population of Tajikistan is overwhelmingly rural, this gap is even starker; there are between 135,000 to 177,000 poor children living in urban centres, compared to 514,000 to 949,000 in rural areas (World Bank, UNICEF, & TAJSTAT, 2016).

Figure 5. Poverty incidence among children in urban vs. rural households in Tajikistan[footnoteRef:8] [8: Graph directly taken from World Bank, UNICEF, and Tajikistan Agency on Statistics. 2016. Child poverty in Tajikistan.]

Women and girls are disadvantaged by the significant inequalities in Tajikistan. The most recent Global Gender Gap Report of the World Economic Forum (WEF), which was published in 2018, benchmarks 149 countries on their progress towards gender parity across four dimensions: economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment. Tajikistan scored 0.638, placing it at 123rd out of the 149 participating countries and rendering Tajikistan’s gender gap the largest in the Eastern Europe and Central Asia region (WEF, 2018). Figure 5 below compares the gender gap in Tajikistan against other post-Soviet states in the Central Asia and southern Caucasus region that participated in the WEF report.

Figure 6. WEF Global Gender Gap Index 2018, select post-Soviet states

The large gender gap in Tajikistan can be mainly attributed to widening disparities in economic participation and opportunity for women (WEF, 2018). The country also scores relatively low in terms of women’s political empowerment, placing 121st out of 149, which indicates weak political representation of women. It fares slightly better in terms of health and survival and educational attainment outcomes, for which it places 74th and 118th, respectively. The breakdown by WEF’s gender gap sub-indices are shown in Figure 6 below.

Figure 7. Tajikistan’s scores per WEF gender gap sub-index

Legal and policy frameworks for education Legal frameworks

In Tajikistan, free and compulsory general basic education is guaranteed in the Article 41 of Tajikistan’s Constitution which states that ‘Everyone shall have the right to education. The basic general education shall be compulsory. The state shall guarantee the free of charge general basic compulsory education in the state educational establishments. Everyone shall get free of charge general vocational, primary specialized, vocational specialized and higher specialized education in the state educational establishments, within the framework determined by law. Other forms of education shall be determined by law.’ The same Article also guarantees the right to free general vocational, primary specialized, vocational specialized, and higher specialized education. Currently, general basic education starts at age of 7 and lasts for 9 years. The Law on Education (Law No. 1004, 2013), which was revised in 2013, guarantees the right to education for all, “regardless of nationality, race, sex, language, religion, political beliefs, and social and material provisions”. The Law on Preschool Education and Care (Law No. 1056, 2013) guarantees the right to early childhood care and education (ECCE) to all Tajik citizens regardless of nationality, race, sex, language, religion, political position, social and property status of parents/guardians. Foreign citizens and stateless persons also have the right to receive ECCE in accordance with the procedure established by the national legislation. Annex 1 shows a list of national legislative documents with relevance to education.

As shown in Annex 1, the Republic of Tajikistan has ratified a series of International Conventions and Covenants related to education and human resource development.

Policy frameworks Education sector development is governed and regulated by the overarching National Development Strategy (NDS) 2016-2030, National Strategy for Education Development (NSED) 2012-2020 and a number of corresponding medium-term implementation action plans and state programmes. Thus NDS and NSED define the Republic of Tajikistan's commitment to the provision of educational services to its population, and set the overall direction and pace of reform in the education sector.

Tajikistan’s National Development Strategy 2030 (NDS-2030) presents its commitment to create a sustainable, prosperous, internationally connected, united and just society by 2030. NDS-2030 also shows it full commitment to implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (SDGs). The key targets include: reducing poverty rates by 50 % and eliminating extreme poverty; significantly increasing spending on social welfare of the population; bringing the share of the middle class up to 50 % of the population; and achieving transformational growth which enables a shift from dependency on agriculture towards greater complexity and diversification of the economy. The education sector is considered as the driving force for bringing about these changes. At the same time, the strategy also recognizes that the quality of education service is far from perfect. For instance, it mentions that access to education is hindered by insufficient increase in the number of pre-school institutions, poor quality of school infrastructure in the regions, and poor qualification of teachers. Other impediments to improved education outcomes are low attendance rates, inadequate access to improved sanitation and water supply in rural schools, and gender disparity at all levels of education.

NDS-2030 articulates the strategic priorities for education under the chapter on human capital development (social block) as follows:

1. Ensuring equality and access to education;

2. Improving the quality of education at all levels;

3. Enhancing financial stability and efficiency in the education sector; and

4. Establishment and development of national professional network of scientific - technical developments with emphasis on resource saving technologies in the context of labor surplus and mountainous country.

The key quantitative targets for education under NDS-2030 are presented in the below table.

The National Strategy of Education Development of the Republic of Tajikistan (2012-2020) positions education as a key resource of national development. The national priority for 2020 is to create conditions to ensure functional and effective provision of educational services and access to appropriate quality education for all to: (1) ensure well-being of citizens and social stability; and (2) establish skilled personnel base for economic growth in priority sectors, developing technologically effective productions and attracting investments into the country’s economy. In order to achieve these objectives, the following priority directions were identified:

· Modernization of the education system (e.g., curriculum, pedagogy, special education, etc.)

· Structural changes in the education system, including introduction of preschool education for children at the age of 6

· Ensuring the accessibility of quality education

The Government outlined a number of concrete aims to ensure the implementation of the National Strategy within the framework of priority directions will be aimed at the following objectives: 1) changing the structure of education; 2) structural adjustment of the education system and business mechanisms; and 3) ensuring equal access to quality education. Under each of these objectives are tangible and specific ways that the Government intends to gain momentum toward the priority directions.

Based on the commitments and progress made since 2012, the Medium-Term Education Action Plan (MTEAP) 2018-2020 was developed covering final stage of the National Strategy on Education Development (NSED) 2020. Building on the achievements of the previous stages, the document is designed to guide the implementation of the NSED in achieving the set objectives. The MTEAP 2018-2020 focuses on 2 cross-cutting priorities of the education sector, namely: (1) ensuring access to education for all categories of the population and age; and (2) improving the quality of education for all learners at all levels of education.

MTEAP 2018-2020 set ambitious targets, some of them presented in Table 4 below. The major expansion is planned in pre-school and ECE with quality enhancement. Various policy interventions to expansion and improve the technical and vocational education and training (TVET) at all levels (initial, secondary and higher) are also planned. They are consistent with the national development strategies discussed above, and the close review of the implementation of the MTEAP 2018-2020 will guide the development of the next National Strategy for Education Development (2021-2030).

Table 2. MTEAP 2018-2020 Target Outcomes

Early childhood education

General secondary education

96,4% 78% 105,3% 96,4% 85%

0,91 - basic 0,84 - secondary

0.93 - primary

0.91 - basic

0.86 - secondary

(Girls - 79%) 85% (Girls - 83%)

Technical and Vocational Education and Training (IVET and SVET)

Higher vocational education

Number of university students

- including women per 10,000, person (Women - 76) (Women - 100)

Management and financing

somoni 4 577 215,0 somoni

Structure of the national formal education system Children in Tajikistan begin school at the age of seven, marking the beginning of compulsory education at Grade 1. Compulsory education lasts nine years, which runs from primary school (four years), to lower secondary education (five years), to finally upper secondary education (two years) – this one is not compulsory.

After the first nine years of compulsory formal schooling - that is, after lower secondary education - students can follow one of two streams: (a) general secondary education or (b) vocational and technical education. A student that has completed upper secondary school can then transition to higher education, which is, as in most countries, divided into three levels: the bachelor’s degree (lasting four years), the master’s degree (lasting two years), and the doctorate degree. The alternate path, vocational and technical education, is comprised of two levels, initial (or primary) and secondary. Pursuing the vocational and technical education stream therefore adds two years to secondary education, at the successful completion of which the student obtains, a general secondary certificate and a TVET certificate allowing them to enter the job market.

Currently, Tajikistan is preparing for transition to a 12-year-education system. The National Strategy for Education Development (NSED) 2012-2020 in Tajikistan notes that “fundamental changes should occur in the education structure of the primary school (1-5 grades), general education school (6-10 grades) and secondary school (11-12 grades).” It is stipulated by the inconformity of traditional “academic” education structure to modern requirements and objectives to provide vocational education to the population in conditions of industrialization of economy. These changes are in response to the growing demands of the modern industrial economy for citizens to attain vocational skills.

The current structure of the formal education system is illustrated in Figure 8 below.

Figure 8. Education ladder in Tajikistan[footnoteRef:9] [9: Diagram directly lifted from European Training Foundation. 2014. Torino Process 2014: Tajikistan. Turin, European Training Foundation.]

Rural/urban disparities Wealth is not distributed evenly throughout Tajikistan. Like many countries, wealth is the source of many inequities, including education. The World Bank (2017a) indicates that education completion is correlated with wealth. However, this does not correspond to analysis of transition and completion rates in Tajikistan. While GBAO is, for instance the poorest region of the country, it has the highest transition and completion rates, including among girls. Similarly, in Dushanbe, which is considered amongst the richest with (95%) of its households in the highest wealth quintile faces challenges with transition and completion rates (TAJSTAT & ICF, 2018).

In recent years, the pace of poverty reduction has slowed concurrent with the economic slowdown in the region (World Bank, 2018), which perpetuates the existing patterns of regional inequity.

Figure 9. Highest diploma obtained by consumption

While economic disparities between urban and rural areas in Tajikistan impact the entire population, children are particularly vulnerable to living in poverty. Tajikistan has large cohorts of children, adolescents and young adults, reflecting its high fertility rates. The average age is under 25 years, and 40% of the population is less than 18 years old. With around 30% of population living below the national poverty line in 2016 and significantly higher rural poverty rates than in urban areas, a significant number of children fall into poverty every year (World Bank, UNICEF, and TAJSTAT, 2018). Living in poverty impacts not only educational opportunities, but those that emerge throughout the life course. Yet while poverty can have deleterious direct and indirect impacts on well-being, children with access to high-quality facilities, curriculum, and teachers may fare better than those who do not. This is where strategically targeted policy can have an enormous impact on educational equity.

Tajikistan’s engagement in providing universal access to free and compulsory basic education is a demonstration of the country’s commitment to improving equity, as education is one of the best pathways out of poverty. However, children with disability (CwD) and students in mountainous areas with dispersed population face difficulties in achieving universal basic education. Databases on CwD is maintained by ASIP, MoES and MoHSPP, which is not compatible and poorly harmonized, therefore, it is not possible to precisely estimate the total number of children with disabilities and the level of engagement of children with disabilities in formal education. Additionally, CwD are mainly accommodated in specialized schools rather in mainstream education and minority language speakers lack access to materials in their language especially in areas outside of Dushanbe (World Bank, 2019).

In recent years, the Government has made strides toward improving educational equity through proactive education policies, reflecting its National Strategy for Education Development which aims to ensure universal access to relevant and quality education. From 2010 to 2015, the Government increased budgetary allocation to this sector from 4.0 % to 5.2 % of GDP during 2010 and 2015 (World Bank, 2018). This increased investment worked in parallel to improved efficiency in the financing and provision of education.

The Government of Tajikistan has introduced additional reforms to the education system that have contributed to equity. It shifted to a system of per capita financing, which is based on the principle of “the money follows the student”. This system has improved equity in public resource allocation across the regions, increased the efficiency of the system, and improved school autonomy. This reform is further discussed in the chapter ‘Cost and Financing’. Additionally, the country has invested in developing and expanding its Education Management Information System (“EMIS”), improving the quality of education data for decision makers and providing valuable input to crafting an education strategy. In 2014, Tajikistan established the National Testing Center under the President of the Republic of Tajikistan and implemented a new higher education admission system, the Unified Entrance Examination (“UEE”), which allows for greater merit-based admissions to universities and consequently increased equity by increasing female admissions (by 10 %) and students from rural areas (by about 40 %). Finally, in 2016 the Government launched a new competency-based curriculum for primary grades and in 2017, for 5-11 grades which is still in its early stages, which could help to improve educational outcomes if it receives sufficient support.

Access and transition Enrolment The system of education of the Republic of Tajikistan is comprised of pre-primary, general secondary, primary and secondary vocational education, and higher education.

As demonstrated in Figure 9 below, the size of the education system is constantly expanding in line with the population growth.

Figure 10. Changes in enrolment, 2000-2017.

Source: UIS Data Center

Similar to other Central Asian countries, Tajikistan has shown a high level of participation for primary and lower secondary education (ISCED levels 1 and 2) as well as adult literacy. Primary and lower secondary (general basic education) is nearly universal. However, Tajikistan lags behind of the Central Asian countries as well as lower-middle income countries in the coverage of pre-primary education. In addition, at the upper secondary education level (ISCED 3), male GER is close to the regional average for Central Asia at 77%, while female GER is much lower at 58%, closer to the average for the lower-middle income countries. (UIS Data Center, 2017)

Figure 11. Gross enrolment rate and adult literacy rate (male, 2017 data)

Figure 12. Gross enrolment rate and adult literacy rate (female, 2017 data)

Source: UIS Data Center (accessed on 23 April 2019)

Pre-primary

Pre-primary education is considered one of the priority areas of the education system and it is continuously supported by the Government of the Republic of Tajikistan. The adopted legal and regulatory acts related to the preschool education demonstrate the improvement in the area of monitoring and methodological assistance to the preschool educational entities. The NSED 2012-2020 and the Law of the Republic of Tajikistan "On Pre-School Education" emphasizes the importance of pre-school education. Building on this government priority, the Ministry of Education and Science (MoES) is working closely with international development partners to improve curricula and teacher training facilities, while also making efforts to improve the quality of education and increase coverage beyond the 1990s level of around 16 % of eligible students.

In the 2017-18 academic year, there were 615 state pre-school institutions and 1,671 early childhood education centers in Tajikistan serving 136,719 children. The number of state preschool institutions increased resulting in an increase of enrollment rate by 2.2 % during 2016-2017.

Table 3. Enrolment data, state preschool institutions

Source: Mirzoev, S. 2017. Republic of Tajikistan Education Joint Sector Review 2017 Update. Dushanbe.

The recent increase in the coverage can be partly attributed to the considerable expansion of various models of pre-school institutions such as community-based or school-based Early Childhood Education (ECE) centers, private kindergartens and family-based kindergartens as well as double-shift kindergartens. Especially, the enrolment in ECE centers increased rapidly in the recent years, from 6,955 in 2011 to 43,448 in 2016. As most of the ECE centers are located in rural areas, they have contributed significantly to improve access to pre-school education in those disadvantaged areas.

Table 4. Enrolment in ECE centers

Source: Mirzoev, S. 2017. Republic of Tajikistan Education Joint Sector Review 2017 Update. Dushanbe.

According to the Joint Education Sector Review (Mirzoev, 2017), out of all enrolled children, approximately 67 % attend publicly funded state kindergartens and private kindergartens, which are full-day models, with high overhead costs. The remaining 33 % of children are enrolled in ECE centers, which offer only education services, usually on a half-day basis. ECEs are located predominantly in rural areas. At present, public kindergartens are mostly found in urban centers and offer a full-day curriculum. These ECE centers are supported by development partners (e.g., UNICEF, Aga Khan Foundation, and Open Society Institute), local governments, and communities; and tend to rely on parental fees to cover recurrent expenses.

With the high level of commitments from the Government and the development partners, the access to pre-primary education is increasing. The pre-primary education coverage in Tajikistan has grown to 15.6 % in 2017 (from 15.2 % in 2016). However, it is still low compared to other comparable countries (see Figures 10 & 11) and greatly impedes children's academic performance in later years and far from the target of the NSED 2020 (30 %). Access to pre-primary education is influenced by multiple factors. According to a Tajikistan Living Standards Survey (TLSS) 2007, the most common reason for non-enrollment was unavailability of pre-school facilities (52 %) (World Bank, 2013).

According to targets set in the NSED 2020, the access of children of 1-6 years old to preschools should be 20%, 3-6 years old 30%. According to the statistics of EMIS, in 2018 only 10,4 of children of ages 1-6 and only 14,7 of children 3-6 years old were covered with preschool education. The quantity of preschool institutions increases proportionally to the increasing number of children (natural increase in population) every year, however, the percentage of coverage of children with ECE has not reached the indicators of 2012, when it was 12,2% for 1-6 yrs old and 15% 3-6 yrs old.

Table 5. Number of children and percentage of coverage of children with ECE (3-6 yrs old, including in ECE centers)

To ensure an increase in the coverage of pre-school education, a positive trend of growth in the number of pre-school institutions is observed not only in the capital and cities of the country, but also in rural areas. This is due to the construction of new preschool institutions, the establishment of ECE centers. For example, in the 2012-2013 school year total of 451 pre-school institutions functioned throughout the country, and in the 2018-2019 school year their number reached 636. For the period from 2012 to 2018 the percentage of growth in the number of pre-school institutions in the country reached 41.3%. The growth in the number of preschool institutions and children in all regions of the country can be analyzed using the table below.

Table 6. Growth in the number of preschool institutions and children in all regions of RT from 2012-2018[footnoteRef:11]. [11: EMIS, Part 1 , 2019 P.4 and estimations of the author]

All republic

GBAO

Khatlon

Sughd

Dushanbe

RRS

Analysis of the table indicates that in the period from 2012 to 2018, in the republic as a whole shows an increase in the number of pre-school institutions by 41.3%, and in rural areas by 72.4%. There is also a significant growth trend in the number of children in rural areas 97.4%. This trend applies to all regions, with the exception of the Khatlon region. In the Khatlon region, for that period there was a regression: the number of pre-school institutions decreased by 7 units, which is -7.4%, and the number of children in urban pre-school institutions decreased by 193 children, respectively -1.6%.

In order to increase access to quality education programs for young children, Medium-term plan of the NEDS until 2020, in clauses 1.2.1.1 and 1.3.1.1. mentions provision of equipment and educational materials to create material and technical base of preschool institutions and ECE centers. From 2014 to 2018 the number of ECE centers increased from 1,400 to 1,697, and the number of children in them from 31,312 to 46,360.

Table 7. The % of the growth in the number of children and ECE centers in the republic

Analysis of the coverage of preschool education in ECE centers of the Khatlon region tends to decrease. For example, if in the 2017-2018 school year 767 ECE centers, pre-school preparation covered 19,644 children, and in the 2018-2019 school year 783 ECE centers, and 18,611 children were educated, which is 1033 fewer than in the previous school year.

Table 8. % of increase and decrease of the number of children in ECE centers in Khatlon region

The reason for decrease in coverage in ECE centers in Khatlon education department was explained by the fact that the cost of staying children in ECE centers is not funded by the state budget and therefore, the coverage of children in ECE centers always depends on household income.

The key constraints on pre-primary education in Tajikistan are: (i) a lack of qualified teachers and specialists, (ii) lack of adequate physical space and (iii) access to preschool is even more limited for children with special needs, children of migrants, refugees, and street children. For example, in 2017, regular KGs enrolled 484 CwD, including 211 children with a mental disability, 155 weak-sighted children, 50 deaf or hearing-impaired children, 40 dumb children, and 28 children with spinal trauma. The Early Learning Centers (ELCs) enrolled around 60 CwD. Still, capacity of regular preschools to accommodate CwD is low. (EMIS Data, 2017)

Additionally, there is an insufficient number of trained personnel with appropriate skills to nurture the development of young children and prepare them for lifelong learning. Moreover, the lack of teaching-learning material and poor facilities makes the ability of teachers to deliver quality services even more difficult. However, it is not only the availability of public preschools that act as a binding constraint to coverage, but also the population’s attitudes towards the added value of this education—especially, since preschools charge fees that are a financial burden on poor households with multiple school-aged children (World Bank, 2018). The Joint Education Sector Review (Mirzoev, 2017) also reports that while the state created 10,557 new seats in state kindergartens during the last three years, 5,253 seats were left vacant during 2014-2016. The reasons were not known, but the report points out the possibility of the supply-demand mismatch and unaffordability of the fees. The report also mentions the rural families’ reluctance to cater their children to pre-schools in favor of keeping them at home, partly due to the distance and poor quality of facilities. Further analysis is needed.

There is increasing evidence for the positive impact of early childhood education in Tajikistan and globally. Ajwad and colleagues (2014) reported that, based on 2013 household survey data, adults who attended pre-school are more likely to be employed compared to adults who did not. They are more likely to be found in the formal and public sector, and much less in the agriculture sector. According to , participation in ECEC in Tajikistan has been lagging behind of the neighboring countries, which poses a problem is Tajikistan is to meet its targets under the direction of the Medium-Term Education Action Plan (MTEAP) 2018-2020.

Figure 13. Employment outcomes: individuals who attended preschool vs individuals who did not attend preschool

Source: Ajwad, et al. (2014), p.24

General Secondary Education The Government provides free and compulsory basic education (Grades 1 – 9). Gross and net school enrollment rates near universal, access to basic education is widespread across all income groups, though some mountainous areas with dispersed populations and CwD still face difficulties.

Data from the JSR, 2017 indicates that in the academic year 2017-18, there were 3,870 general secondary educational institutions with 1,903,269 students enrolled and over 78.3 percent of these institutions provide students the full cycle of general secondary education (grades 1-11), while 9.1 percent of schools offer education only in primary grades (1-4). Progress has been made to increase access in primary and basic education.

Table 9: Select indicators in general secondary education 2010-2017

Source: JSR, 2017

Enrollment

Enrollment rates have been historically high in Tajikistan, yet there is evidence of dropouts and greater gender imbalances which result in lower attendance and higher dropout rates of girls. In 2017, 48.3 percent of girls enrolled in primary grades, 48.2 percent in lower secondary grades and 46 percent in upper secondary grades. (See figure below)

Lower attendance rates can be seen in rural areas where educational facilities are remote and not within a reasonable distance. For example in GBAO, enrollment rates in general secondary education has been steadily declining for 12 consecutive years, such as more recently from 37,806 enrolled students in 2016 to 37,151 students in 2017. EMIS reports show that there are in fact more students enrolling in the first grade of primary but enrollment rates (among boys and girls alike) start falling significantly beyond primary grades. This could be partly explained by: (i) high rates of migration from GBAO to other regions within the country; (ii) prevalence of poverty and inability of households to pay for education of their children in higher grades; (iii) remoteness of educational facilities and distance to school; and (iv) poor infrastructure (e.g., heating and electricity shortages)

Figure 14: Net Enrolment Rates (NER) be levels of General Secondary Education, 2010-2017

Source: JSR, 2017 update

Figure 15. Completion rates for general secondary education, 2010-2017.

Source: JSR 2017

Issues related to quality is amongst one of the concerns affecting the general secondary education system, the MoES has taken critical steps and significant improvement of learning materials and overall school infrastructure which led to higher average class size and classrooms-to-school ratio. (See table below)

Table 10. Classrooms, class size and other indicators in general secondary education (2010-2017)

Source: JSR, 2017 update.

Transition Rate

In 2017, the transition rate for boys was 80.7 and for girls 77.7, compared to 80.0 and 76.0 respectively back in 2016. Higher transition rates indicate greater access to education, or higher level of transition from basic education (grades 1-9) to upper secondary education (grades 10-11). These figures suggest that more students successfully transitioned from basic education and continued their studies in 10th and 11th grades during 2016-2017, therefore completing the full cycle of general secondary education. TRs in rural areas are a concern especially among girls. In RRS for example, the transition rate for girls was 60.9 in the 2017-18 academic year. A closer look into assessing the quality of educational facilities and the availability of qualified teaching personnel is essential in providing equal opportunities for all.

Figure 16: TR from basic to upper secondary education by gender

Source: JSR, 2017

FIGURE 18: Transition rate (TR) from basic to upper secondary education (9th to 10th grade) by region 2007-2016

Teachers

Primary and secondary education face the same shortage of qualified teaching personnel. As such, the government developed and implemented a strategy that focused on teacher training, curriculum development, enforcement of new teaching standards, and increased remuneration; this strategy steadily increased the number of teachers and improved their qualifications (Mirzoev, 2017). According to Mirzoev (2017), the number of primary and secondary teachers in Tajikistan increased by 3.2% between 2016 and 2017. He also noted that, of the total teacher population, 70.9% had at least a university degree in 2017, as compared to 69.7% in 2016. However, in spite of the steady increase in the number of primary and secondary school teachers, a significant percentage of these teachers (14.2% in primary and 20.7% in secondary) had less than three years of teaching experience (Mirzoev, 2017). The increase in the number of primary and secondary school teachers between 2010 and 2017 is illustrated in Figure below.

Figure 19. Increase in number of primary and secondary school teachers (2010-2017)[footnoteRef:12] [12: Graph directly taken from Mirzoev, S. 2017. Republic of Tajikistan Education Joint Sector Review 2017 Update. Dushanbe.

This steady increase in primary and secondary school teaching personnel has naturally led to a steady decrease in student-teacher ratios, except in the Soghd region, where population growth is highest and thus demand outsripped supply (Mirzoev, 2017). The decrease in student-teacher ratios per region between 2010 and 2017 is illustrated in Figure 34 below.

Figure 20. Student-teacher ratios per region, primary and secondary school (2010-2017)[footnoteRef:13] [13: Graph directly taken from Mirzoev, S. 2017.