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THE REFORM OFVOCATIONAL EDUCATIONAND TRAINING IN THEREPUBLIC OF TAJIKISTAN

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THE EUROPEAN TRAINING FOUNDATION IS THEEUROPEAN UNION’S CENTRE OF EXPERTISESUPPORTING VOCATIONAL EDUCATION AND TRAININGREFORM IN THIRD COUNTRIES IN THE CONTEXT OFTHE EU EXTERNAL RELATIONS PROGRAMMES

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THE REFORM OF VOCATIONALEDUCATION AND TRAINING INTHE REPUBLIC OF TAJIKISTAN

Henrik Faudel and Peter Grootings, European Training Foundation, Turin, in collaboration with

Subhon Ashurov, Ministry of Labour and Social Protection, Dushanbe, August 2006

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Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications ofthe European Communities, 2006.

ISBN: 92-9157-479-1

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

FOREWORD 5

SUMMARY 7

1. HISTORY AND CONTEXT 13

1.1 A brief history 13

1.2 Tajikistan today 15

1.3 Tajikistan’s future 18

2. VOCATIONAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING IN TAJIKISTAN 25

2.1 Introduction 25

2.2 Current situation in VET 26

2.3 Heritage from the past 36

2.4 The decline of vocational schools 39

2.5 Potential scope of VET 40

2.6 Recent developments and main policy challenges 40

3. THE SOCIOECONOMIC ENVIRONMENT FOR VET REFORM 43

3.1 Introduction 43

3.2 Economic developments 43

3.3 Demographic developments 46

3.4 Labour market developments 48

4. MAJOR CHALLENGES FOR THE REFORM OF VET 53

4.1 Introduction 53

4.2 Current situation in Tajikistan 53

4.3 Lessons from abroad 57

4.4 The main challenge 58

5. A REFORM AGENDA FOR VET IN TAJIKISTAN 61

5.1 A concept for the reform of VET 61

5.2 The VET reform agenda 63

5.3 Development and implementation of the reform strategy: immediate priorities 68

REFERENCES 71

LIST OF ACRONYMS 73

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FOREWORD

This report presents an analysis ofvocational education and training (VET) inTajikistan. It places the issue of skillsdevelopment in a wider historical andinstitutional context and uses experiencesfrom EU countries and other transitioncountries as a point of reference. Thereport’s main assumption is that a modernpublic VET system is a necessary conditionfor transforming a society currentlycharacterised by high levels of poverty,migration and social and economicinequality into one that has a sustainablefuture of sound economic development andsocial cohesion. Obviously, a functioningVET system on its own is not sufficient toachieve this, and more is needed. Basedon an analysis of the current situation inVET, a broad concept for reform will bedeveloped in this report. The concept takesinto account the current challenges facedby the VET system in terms of the social,economic and political situation inTajikistan. Based on a review of itsprincipal characteristics, mostly inheritedfrom the times when Tajikistan was part ofthe Soviet Union, a future perspective forVET will be presented. This perspectivebuilds on past achievements and looks atlessons from elsewhere, but goes beyondan attempt merely to preserve or revivewhat existed before. VET in Tajikistan notonly needs more funds for themodernisation of contents, equipment,materials and delivery. It also needsstructural changes in the way it isorganised and even more far-reachingsystemic reform of its overall institutionalset-up.

The context for reform of VET in Tajikistanis a complex one, politically, economicallyand socially. This complexity is the result ofan institutional legacy inherited from aneconomic and political system that was

built around different principles, a systemwhich had not been modernised since theearly 1980s and which led the country intoa disastrous civil war that broughtdestruction and human suffering. Thesituation is further compounded by the factthat the neighbouring region has, onceagain, become a playground for theeconomic and security interests of theworld powers. In contrast to most othercountries in Central Asia, Tajikistan isheavily dependent on external assistanceto enable it to recover from the past andprepare itself for a sustainable future. Suchassistance is currently provided from anumber of sources, implying differentapproaches to economic and socialdevelopment. The different sources ofexternal assistance also seek to definevarious policy agendas, directly andindirectly, including the possible place androle of VET. It will be a great challenge forthose responsible for developing andreforming the VET system to make gooduse of the international experienceavailable for developing and implementinga national policy that fits the context of thecountry, to find support and commitmentfrom the main stakeholders and to secure asustainable future.

Following a brief outline of Tajikistan’shistory, the first chapter will summarise thekey developments that have contributed tocreating the situation, unique in manyrespects, in which Tajikistan finds itself atthe beginning of the 21st century. Againstthis background, the main features of theexisting VET system will be described inthe second chapter. In the third chapter anumber of features of the overall social andeconomic context that create theenvironment for current policy developmentfor VET reform will be set out. A criticalanalysis, guided by benchmarks taken from

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THE REFORM OF VOCATIONAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING IN THE REPUBLICOF TAJIKISTAN

international policy debates, in particularfrom EU and transition countries, willidentify a number of key issues forpolicymakers to take into consideration. Afinal chapter will elaborate on a scenariofor VET reform based on policy principlesadhered to by EU Member States, andsuggest how current and future EUassistance, including that of the ETF, mightbe used to assist in the further reform ofVET in Tajikistan. The summary chapter atthe beginning of the report presents themain findings without the detaileddescriptions and analyses that arecontained in the chapters that follow.

This report is the result of many lengthydiscussions between the authors, who areinvolved in VET policy reform discussionsin Tajikistan in different roles. Manydiscussions were also held with others,including national stakeholders at all levelsand international consultants working in thecountry. One of the authors is in factpolitically responsible for developing andimplementing the reform. It is fair to saythat in the course of these discussions, allparticipants learned a great deal from one

another in terms of understanding thechallenges faced by VET in Tajikistan. Abetter understanding was also gained ofthe obstacles and perhaps even some ofthe opportunities involved in makingprogress with reform. It is also fair to saythat none of the participants has the fullanswers as to how these challenges canbe faced, though an overall direction hasbecome increasingly clear. Discussions willhave to continue, initiatives for change betried out and experiences shared. Inparticular, it will be important for manymore of the people who are – or whoshould be – involved in VET (in thegovernment, among the social partners,both nationally and locally, and – perhapsabove all – teachers and trainers inschools) to become engaged in thesediscussions. Any reform initiative needs tobe based on the experience, insights andreadiness of the people who will ultimatelyhave to make it work. Outsiders can assistin providing access to experience fromelsewhere, and that can perhaps guidepolicy development by showing that thingscan be done differently. This report is asmall contribution to that process.

SUMMARY

Tajikistan is a poor country. It was poorbefore it declared its independence fromthe Soviet Union in 1991, and povertylevels have shown a further dramaticincrease following the gradual collapse anddisintegration of the Soviet economy andas a result of the destruction caused by thecivil war that devastated the country duringthe early and mid 1990s. The largestate-owned industrial and agriculturalcompanies either have closed down or areworking at a fraction of their formerproduction capacities. Most have not seenany investment in modernisation since theearly 1980s and many were destroyed orlooted during the civil war. Many sufferfrom high levels of debt and are oftenunable to pay even regular wages. With theloss of former Soviet subsidies, the statebudget has been unable to keep up basicsocial sector expenditures. Public sectoremployees, especially civil servants,medical staff and teachers, are receivingsuch low salaries that many are forced toseek additional sources of income. Peoplewho are dependent on pensions andwelfare payments are even worse off.Subsistence farming and informal sectoractivities, including the drug trade, havemushroomed. Large numbers of Tajikshave to work abroad. A series of naturaldisasters, including floods and badharvests, together with the overspill fromthe war in Afghanistan, have addedadditional misery to the country and itspeople. There is also a need to care forreturning Tajik refugees.

Since the end of the 1990s the economyhas shown signs of recovery, though itremains fragile, with its dependence oninformal sectors, subsistence agricultureand remittances remaining at a high level.Moreover, in this process, as so oftenbefore in its history, Tajikistan has become

highly dependent on assistance from othercountries for its social and economicdevelopment, and to a greater extent thanany other country in the region. In factduring most of the 1990s the country wasleft almost completely on its own as thecivil war put a stop on internationalcooperation and aid programmes. It is onlyin recent years that the emergency food aidprogrammes have been followed up withdevelopment assistance, and only during2004 that major foreign investments havebeen announced, largely by Russiancompanies trying to pick up investmentprojects left over from Soviet times.Tajikistan does not have the rich oil andgas supplies that are present inneighbouring countries, and although it hasother energy resources, such ashydropower, capital investments werefrozen in the mid 1980s and the energysector has never been fully developed. Alarge part of its existing industrial (mining,aluminium and textile production) andagricultural (cotton) infrastructure is theresult of Soviet economic policies ratherthan local entrepreneurial initiatives.Tajikistan does not have the means tocapitalise on its natural resources, nor is itable to finance the modernisation anddiversification of its hugely outdated andone-sided industrial and agriculturalinfrastructure.

The nature of the economy is rapidlychanging as individuals, companies andcommunities are developing alternativeincome-generating opportunities, butTajikistan is also facing problems relatingto its institutions and human resources. Itseconomic, political and social institutions,including education and training, arelargely those that were inherited from theSoviet Union, and still need considerablereform to enable economic and social

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development to take place under the newconditions. The demographic compositionof the country’s population and thequalification structure of its labour forcehave changed dramatically because of thecivil war and migration. Most of theRussian-born administrative, managerialand technical staff left the country during orafter the civil war. The qualification gapscreated by their departure are still beingfelt, especially in industry and agriculture.Qualifications in administration, educationand health, traditionally the sectors inwhich better educated Tajiks have foundemployment, have become outdated. Thisis also the case for the qualifications ofworkers at the lower levels of thequalification scale in industry, services andagriculture.

Furthermore, the lack of jobs, especially inrural areas, has forced a large number ofTajiks, among them some of the most able,to earn their living outside Tajikistan, mainlyin other countries of the former SovietUnion. Most migrant Tajik workers work farbelow their formal qualification levels and ininsecure and unsafe working conditions.While remittances have become animportant source of income for manyfamilies, and indeed for the economy as awhole, high levels of migrant labour arecreating additional economic dependencyand social hardship. Rising birth levels areincreasing the younger cohorts for whomeducation and employment must besecured in the near future. Reducingpoverty levels, developing local capacitiesand institutions, improving qualifications andcompetences of the domestic labour force,securing economic and social development,and creating the kind of political stability thatwill allow these to happen are theformidable challenges that are currentlyfaced by Tajik society. Other transitioncountries are facing similar issues, butTajikistan’s point of departure in the early1990s was – and its current situation still is– much worse than in most other countries.

Experience from developed marketeconomies and transition countries showsthat a well-functioning VET system iscrucial for economic development andsocial cohesion. Without a well-educatedand qualified labour force that covers the

different qualification types and levelsrequired by the employment system in abalanced way, no country can secureprosperity and decent standards of welfareand well-being for its people. Theavailability of a stratum of workers withmid-level qualifications, including skilledworkers, technicians and mid-levelprofessionals, is key to economic andsocial development. This understanding isa cornerstone of employment, educationand social policies in EU Member Statesand of their cooperation with andassistance to third countries. It is on thisissue that Tajikistan is currently faced witha major challenge, given both its loss ofthis stratum in the course of the recentmigration waves and the dreadful state ofits VET system.

The challenge is a complex one. InTajikistan, VET no longer producesrelevant qualifications for a skilled andcompetent workforce. Nor is it seen byyoung people and their families as aneducational option that providespreparation for a favourable occupationalfuture. It has become an instrument ofsocial protection for children from poorfamilies. This situation is the result of alonger process that has been aggravatedand further complicated by the more recentindependence, transition and civil conflict.However, the situation is made even morecomplex by the fact that many mid-levelskilled worker, technician and managerialpositions in crafts, industry and agriculturewere previously occupied by ‘Europeans’ ofRussian, Ukrainian or German descent.Most of these left the country in the exodusthat occurred during and after the civil war,leaving this backbone of the employmentsystem largely vacant, as Tajiks have notbeen able to fill the gap. It is estimated that70–80% of the qualified workforce in thenon-agricultural sector left the country inthe first wave of migration. Thus, thepresent situation is not simply a matter of anon-functioning VET system: there aremore complex issues at stake. It alsoresults from longer historical and culturaldevelopments that have influencededucational and occupational preferencesof the urban and rural populations inTajikistan and that will not be easy tochange in the short term.

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Vocational schools already had a poorimage during Soviet times. They did notprovide any educational or occupationalcareer perspectives, and preparedstudents for simple jobs in industry andagriculture. The low status of vocationalschools has been further aggravated by agradual decrease in quality, resulting fromunderinvestment and lack of technologicaland curricular modernisation during the1980s. These developments paralleled asimilar decline in the quality of work andcareer prospects in the companies forwhich the system was preparing the labourforce. Vocational schools, in contrast totheir high status and impact during thesixties and seventies, have graduallybecome a last resort, both for students tolearn and for teachers to teach. Over alonger period the VET system has thusgone into a vicious cycle of mutuallyreinforcing decreases in quality and statusfrom which it has so far been unable torecover. Increasingly, able students chooseother educational alternatives, andstudents who enter vocational schools doso for other reasons than achieving anoccupational qualification.

In Tajikistan the main attraction of the basicvocational schools at the start of the 21stcentury has become the provision of freemeals and shelter for children from poorfamilies who cannot afford to send theiroffspring to other types of school. Thesocial protection function of the vocationalschool system has become even moreimportant because of the collapse of othersocial welfare institutions, in a context inwhich poverty among the population hasdramatically increased. Authorities aretherefore not inclined to let this socialprotection mechanism also slip away.However, the social protection rolecurrently played by vocational schools hasall the characteristics of temporaryemergency aid.

Despite its increasing focus on socialwelfare functions, the VET system in itscurrent form falls short of being an effectiveinstrument for sustained poverty alleviation,as a result of how it is organised and whatit provides. It does not deliver the kind ofknowledge, skills and competences thatwould enable its students to find or create

gainful and decent employment. The VETsystem has not yet been able to respondproperly to new and emerging knowledgeand skill needs. Indeed, companies thathave jobs to offer have becomeincreasingly dissatisfied with the skills,knowledge and competences thatvocational school graduates possess, andare unwilling to employ and retrain them.Given the high levels of unemploymentamong graduates from other types ofschools, employers have sufficient choicein any case. This has become critical in asituation where most, if not all, of the jobsformerly provided by large state-ownedindustrial and agricultural enterprises, forwhich vocational schools still preparestudents, have disappeared. Younggraduates and adults with traditionalvocational qualifications such as thoseprovided by basic vocational schools find itdifficult to find or keep employment. If theyobtain employment, they are among thelowest paid.

In a situation where the government has toreview its public expenditure, the inefficientand ineffective VET system has become aneasy target for budget cuts. Giving up apublicly financed VET system also fits inwith the economic and educational policiesfavoured by the international financialinstitutions up to now. For the moment,however, there is still considerable politicalsupport in Tajikistan for maintaining apublic VET system. The key issue is not somuch to end the social welfare role ofvocational schools but to improve theirqualifying role.

Although there are many possibilities forincreasing the cost efficiency of the VETsystem, serious investment will still beneeded for the modernisation ofinfrastructures, the payment of decentsalaries to staff and the setting up ofsupport systems that have not existedpreviously, for governance, administrationand innovation. While it is not realistic toexpect that, following privatisation,individual companies will once again beable to support or sponsor individualschools, some form of cost sharingbetween the public and private sectorsshould still be possible. However, theinability of vocational schools to provide

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relevant competences is only partly theresult of lack of funding, and it will thereforenot be enough to secure financial budgetsto merely restore and update the system,as it once existed.

The main obstacle is a systemic one. Thetransition to a market economy, combinedwith the introduction of free educationalchoice for students, has created suchfundamental changes in the VETenvironment that a simple revival of theformer system without changing its basiccharacteristics will be doomed to failure.Companies now decide themselves who to‘hire and fire’ according to their own needs.Private enterprises have to work with fixedbudgets that cannot be renegotiated withministries, and therefore have to beconscious of the costs of production.Students – at least those that can afford todo so – have more opportunities to escapefrom schools that prepare individuals forlow-paid and low-status jobs. A policyaimed at modernising an institutionalset-up that was already outdated as aresult of many years of neglect andunderinvestment, that became furtherimpoverished during the years of civilconflict and that no longer responds to afundamentally changed environment, willonly aggravate Tajikistan’s economic andsocial problems. In order to fulfil itspotential contribution to economic andsocial development, Tajikistan’s VETsystem requires modernisation, structuralchange and systemic reform. There is, ofcourse, no clear blueprint available to showexactly what the VET system should looklike in order to suit Tajikistan’s social andeconomic needs. However, some of theparameters that policymakers and otherstakeholders must take into account whenreforming the system are clear, thanks tothe experiences of other transitioncountries.

Modern VET institutions should be able toidentify and flexibly respond to skilldevelopment needs and to provide thelearning environments in which the workersof today and tomorrow can acquire thecompetences they need for employability.Tajik VET institutions are not currently ableto do this. However, neither is there adeveloped private sector that can provide

sufficiently clear signals about the nature ofskill needs. Moreover, national ministriesand agencies are no longer able todetermine the future knowledge and skillneeds in full detail. Clear signals for VETwill therefore remain the exception ratherthan the rule. However, this is the case notonly in Tajikistan, and some lessons canbe learned from experiences elsewhere.

One of the key lessons learned by countriesseeking to cope with high levels of labourmarket uncertainty is that VET should notbe too immediately responsive toshort-term labour market needs but shouldinstead provide broad qualifications thatoffer a basis for further specialisation andfuture development. A second major lessonis that VET should be responsive not onlyto enterprises and their qualification needsbut also to the – often not well formulated –learning needs of people seeking to find ordevelop work opportunities. VET is after allabout educating and training people so thatthey are able to determine their ownoccupational future, and not just aboutproducing qualified labour to satisfy thedemand of enterprises. In the overallcontext of uncertainty, schools need toprovide students with the competences tomaster and cope with insecurity. This goesbeyond the mere transfer of knowledgeand skills.

In an uncertain economic and high-risksocial environment, VET institutions can nolonger afford to stick to the kind ofvocational knowledge and skills they havealways presented, in particular when thesehave already been obsolete for a long time.Therefore, if neither enterprises norpotential students are able to define theirqualification needs, vocational schoolsmust be capable of communicating with thestudents and enterprises in their owncommunity in order to help them to identifytheir qualification needs and to developprogrammes to serve these needs. Such aproactive approach calls for high levels offlexibility and professionalism. Schoolsshould have the autonomy to take on thisresponsibility. However, individual schoolscannot be expected to carry this out ontheir own. The main responsibility ofschools is, and remains, the developmentof knowledge and skills and the

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organisation of learning processes thatenable individuals to achieve the learningoutcomes that they are expected to reach.This is what teachers, trainers andmanagers of school organisations areresponsible and accountable for. Othereducation and training professionals in thesystem need to support them bydeveloping flexible and high-qualityresponses to training needs so that schoolscan concentrate on what they should bedoing most.

This implies – and this is another importantlesson that has been learned – that there isan overall national VET policy, agreedamong principal stakeholders, including thesocial partners. Such an overall policyshould provide clear frameworks,guarantee transparent governance andefficient administration, provide equalaccess, set priorities and criteria forfunding, define responsibilities forachieving objectives, develop overallquality schemes and maintain qualityassurance mechanisms, ensure theavailability of high-quality facilities andprofessional teaching staff, enablecontinuous innovation to take place, andfacilitate international cooperation andexchange. Such a national VET policy, andthe institutional set-up that is needed for itsimplementation, must also be integratedwith policies in other related domains, inparticular in economic development,employment, education and socialprotection. This should ensure that VETinstitutions are in contact with otherinstitutions that are relevant for social andeconomic development. A proper balance

between responsibilities at national andlower levels must therefore also beestablished.

The context for VET reform in Tajikistan isa complex one, politically, economicallyand socially. This complexity is the result ofan institutional legacy inherited from aneconomic and political system that nolonger exists, which missed out onnecessary modernisation a long time agoand which led the country into a disastrouscivil war that brought further destructionand human suffering. The situation isfurther compounded by the fact that thelarger region has, once again, become aplayground for divergent economic andsecurity interests of the major regional andworld powers. In order to prepare itself fora sustainable future Tajikistan, in contrastto most of the other countries in the region,cannot yet rely on its own natural andhuman resources and remains heavilydependent on external assistance. Suchassistance is currently provided from anumber of sources, implying differentapproaches towards development,including different views concerning therole of VET. The various sources ofexternal assistance also seek to definedifferent policy agendas, both directly andindirectly. It will be a great challenge forthose who are responsible for the reform ofthe VET system to make good use of theinternational policy experience available fordeveloping and implementing policies thatfit the context of the country, to find supportand commitment from the mainstakeholders, and to secure a sustainablefuture.

1. HISTORY AND CONTEXT

1.1 A BRIEF HISTORY1

The Republic of Tajikistan – landlockedwithin its borders with Uzbekistan in thewest, Kyrgyzstan in the north, China in theeast and Afghanistan in the south – is asmall, multi-ethnic country of some150,000 sq km and with around 6.5 millioninhabitants. Currently around 80% of itspopulation are Tajik, with 15% of Uzbekorigin and the remainder belonging to otherethnic groups, including a small number ofRussians (1.1%)2. Large numbers of ethnicTajiks live in southern Uzbekistan andnorthern Afghanistan, while the Ferghanavalley in the north of Tajikistan is largelythe home of ethnic Uzbeks. Much of theeast of the country is covered by the PamirMountains, which host the independentregion of Gorno Badakshan (GBAO); thisregion is populated mainly by around200,000 Shiite Muslims of Ismaili

denomination, who have an ethnic andreligious background different from themajority of the population. Three-quartersof Tajikistan’s population live in rural areas,mainly in the Sugd region in the north andthe Khatlon region in the south-west. Thetwo largest towns are Dushanbe, thecapital (650,000 inhabitants), and Khujand(165,000 inhabitants) in the Sugd region.Only 7% of the territory is arable land, therest being mountainous.

Although the Persian-descended Tajiks arenow a minority in a predominantly Turkicregion, they are Central Asia’s oldestinhabitants, having arrived long beforeAlexander the Great reached the region in330 BC3. The Arabs introduced Islam to thearea in the 7th century AD. Bukhara andSamarkand, now in Uzbekistan, were ruledby Persians when these cities were thecultural and scientific centres of the Islamic

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1

1 For a more detailed analysis of historical developments up to the present day see Soucek (2000) and Meyer(2004).

2 Government of the Republic of Tajikistan, Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper, Dushanbe, 2002. The ethniccomposition of the country has changed considerably since the early 1990s as a result of migration.

3 Alexander the Great reached as far as Tajikistan on his conquering route from Macedonia throughMesopotamia, on his way to Samarkand after crossing the Oxus and before founding the town of AlexandriaEschate near today’s Khujand in north Tajikistan. He married a Bactrian princess named Roxana.

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world in the 9th and 10th centuries, untilthey were captured (and destroyed) byTurkish and Mongol invaders during thecenturies that followed. It was Tamerlane(Timur), born in the area of Samarkand,who at the end of the 14th century broughtthis town to its ultimate glory, mainly bybringing in the riches and artists that hecaptured from elsewhere. Until thebeginning of the 19th century Central Asiawas at the crossroads of the silk route,linking Europe and Asia intellectually,economically and politically. But as before,it was the playing field of the world powersof the time, in particular the Russians andthe British. By the end of the 19th centuryCentral Asia was firmly in the hands of theRussian Empire.

After the Revolution of 1917 the Bolshevikarmy quickly destroyed the hopes of boththe old despots and new nationalist Muslimreformers in the region that they could gotheir own way. After crushing severalnational, Islamic and democratic revolts invarious parts of the region, SovietCommunist party leaders created Sovietrepublics, to be governed and administeredunder Moscow’s control by localCommunist party officials, andsubsequently integrated these republicsfirmly into the centralised economic andpolitical structures of the Soviet Union.Tajikistan first became part of theTurkestan Soviet Socialist Republic (1918),then in 1924 became an AutonomousSoviet Socialist Republic, a satellite of theUzbek Soviet Socialist Republic. In 1929 itreceived full republican status. In drawingthe borders the Soviets kept more than700,000 Tajiks who lived in Bukhara andSamarkand outside Tajikistan, thoughmany Uzbeks were included from theFerghana Valley. The tensions that werethus created between the differentcountries in the region have continued intothe 21st century. Early aspirations for anIslamic-based republic were not realised,but continued to exist in Tajikistan with aresurgence of Islamic political activity in themid 1970s in the south of the country,partly in response to the war inAfghanistan. As elsewhere in the region,

Islam became a vehicle for nationalism,especially among the impoverishedsections of the population. But in Tajikistanit has been possible, following the end ofthe civil war in 1996, to preserve arelatively peaceful situation between the(Sunni and Shiite) Muslim and non-Muslimpopulations.

It is clear that the country in many respectsbenefited from being part of the Russianand later Soviet Empire, and the Tajikpopulation recognises this. As in otherSoviet republics, modern transport andcommunication infrastructures were set up,and basic health, education and othersocial services became available to thegreat majority of the population. A national,largely urban, intelligentsia has profitedfrom the development of an educationsystem that guaranteed universal access tobasic education, in both the Russian andTajik languages and – selectively –provided higher education opportunities foran increasing number of people (inparticular to satisfy the increasing need forteaching staff and health workers). Theeducation system gave the vast majority ofpeople entry to vocational and professionaleducation at basic, secondary andpost-secondary levels. However, outsidethe urban centres and the large agriculturalcomplexes in the countryside, access toeducation was more limited. The educationsystem was well integrated into the overallSoviet system, which on the one handimplied that the main decisions andresources came from the centre inMoscow, but on the other hand allowed atall levels a range of internationalexchanges and cooperation with educationinstitutions in all other republics, both forstudents and for teaching staff. As was thecase with the employment system, it wasthe disintegration of the Soviet educationsystem following its own gradualimpoverishment and failed modernisationthat is now creating such a tremendouschallenge for national authorities. They arefacing the task of rebuilding a modernnational VET system on the remnants ofthe larger and centralised Soviet system.

1.2 TAJIKISTAN TODAY

Political and economic heritage

Present-day Tajikistan is politically andeconomically mainly the product of TsaristRussian and – later – Communist Sovietquasi-colonial policies in Central Asia thatdate back to the mid 18th century. Russia’smain economic interest in Central Asia wasto have a reliable supplier of raw materials,in particular cotton, and a market for itsown industrial and agricultural products. Itsought to secure this by colonising the newlands by the military and rural settlers aswell as re-urbanising existing towns withartisans, traders and other entrepreneursfrom the European parts of the Empire.Russia initially capitalised in particular onthe traditional cotton and silk production ofthe Ferghana valley. With a view tobecoming independent from world markets(in particular following export problems inthe US during the civil war) it expandedand intensified cotton growth to the wholeregion, replacing other previously existingtypes of agricultural production (includingcereals and cattle), and thus created anextreme monoculture which in turn causedlocal dependency on Russia’s foodexports. Because of the large amounts ofwater that are needed for cottonproduction, this has also created long-termecological problems.

Soviet-led mass industrialisation arrived inTajikistan only during and after World WarII, when the Soviets sought to relocateRussia’s own industrial infrastructure to itsmore distant republics in an attempt tosave production capacities from wardamage. Industrialisation in Tajikistandeveloped in line with an overallcentralised planned economy that wasbased on the principle of mutual economicdependency, and became part of theinternal division of labour within the SovietUnion. Soviet economic policy did notenvisage individual republics developingindigenous industrial strength. Tajikistan,for example, developed aluminiumproduction but had to import bauxite and

export semi-products. Most of the cottongrown in Tajikistan was exported to otherrepublics. The Soviets had alreadyintroduced nationalisation andcollectivisation of agriculture, including theforced and large-scale development ofcotton growth. The expansion of cottonproduction in Tajikistan during the Sovietyears also led to the forced migration offarmers from the Pamir Mountains to thecotton fields in the south-west of thecountry. Investments in the country’s mainenergy source, hydropower, which becameof strategic interest after the oil crisis of the1970s, came to a halt in the mid 1980s,when the Soviet Union gradually ran intoan economic crisis. Thus, the fate of theTajiks at the start of the 21st century iscoloured not only by its political heritagebut also by its industrial and agriculturaleconomic inheritance.

High poverty levels

Even during the Soviet times, Tajikistanwas the poorest and economically leastdeveloped country of all the Sovietrepublics. Its per capita income was thelowest and the percentage of its populationliving in poverty was one of the highest4. In1989 the mean income per capita was lessthan half that of Russia; in 2002 the grossnational income (GNI) per capita was lessthan $2005. The country’s economygradually declined with the deterioration ofthe overall Soviet economy that began inthe 1970s, in both economic andtechnological terms. Major investmentprojects that had been started in the early1980s were discontinued because of a lackof funding from Moscow. Following itsindependence, Tajikistan also lost thebudget transfers it had previously receivedfrom Moscow, which used to make up 40%of the republic’s budget6.

Since declaring its independence in 1991Tajikistan has experienced dramaticchanges that have had seriousconsequences for the economic and socialsituation of its population. In 2004Tajikistan remained the poorest country in

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4 Government of the Republic of Tajikistan (2002), p.10.

5 World Bank (2004), p.1.


the Central Asian region7. It ranked 103rdamong 174 states in terms of the humandevelopment index, and nearly two-thirdsof its population lived below the povertyline8. However, the situation in 2004 wasalready considerably better than in 1999,especially in rural areas. These areasnevertheless remain characterised byhigher levels of extreme poverty9.

Growing inequality and decreasing

quality of education and social services

Grants from Moscow had helped todevelop and finance the education, healthand welfare sectors. Tajikistan had fullbasic literacy levels until the end of the1980s. However, as elsewhere in theSoviet Union, budget transfers had beeninsufficient to cover modernisation needssince the beginning of the 1980s. Since1991, without these transfers from Moscow– which in any case tended to cover onlysalary costs and a portion of running costs– it has proved impossible to maintainexpenditure levels in education, health andsocial care. Maintenance and repairs, notto mention innovation and improvement ofthe social sector infrastructure, had alreadysuffered over a long period of time beforethe final collapse of the Soviet Union.Access and overall quality deterioratedfurther following independence. Informalpayments for educational services (accessand diplomas) are once again widespread,though they had almost been eradicatedduring the 1980s. These developmentshave hit poor people in particular.Attendance and literacy levels have fallen,especially among girls in rural andmountainous areas.

Obsolete infrastructures and lost lives

Tajikistan’s economic and publicinfrastructure had already suffered from alack of maintenance and modernisationduring much of the 1980s. The country hadto endure additional suffering on top of

these problems. Tajikistan was the onlyformer Soviet republic in which the strugglefor power following the collapse of theSoviet Union led to a protracted civil waramong the various competing regional,political and religious groups in the country.Between 1994 and 1997, when a nationalconciliation and peace treaty was finallysigned with assistance from theinternational community, Tajikistan not onlysuffered physical damage to large parts ofits infrastructure (including destroyed andlooted factories, schools and residentialbuildings). It also lost more than 50,000lives, saw 600,000 people injured, hadmore than 26,000 widows whose familieshad lost their main breadwinner, and seenthe entire younger generation traumatisedby the war experience. There were alsothousands of former combatants to bereintegrated into society and some 200,000returning refugees who had fled thecountry during the war. Drought and aseries of bad harvests caused additionalsuffering. Moreover, international aid hadbeen suspended, except for emergencyfood aid, for most of the 1990s, and thedonor community only returned at thebeginning of the new millennium. Refugeesof Tajik origin fleeing the war inAfghanistan were also seeking shelter inthe country.

Economic disintegration and high

unemployment

In the course of the forced introduction of amarket economy, the large state-ownedcompanies in industry and agriculture,which previously employed the vastmajority of Tajikistan’s labour force,collapsed. Economic ties betweenTajikistan and other former Soviet republicsbroke down, and complex supply andbarter relations between companies indifferent republics came to an abrupt end.Many companies were either destroyed orceased to operate during and following theyears of civil conflict. Large numbers of

16


7 World Bank, Tajikistan Poverty Assessment Update. Main Report, Europe and Central Asia Region, HumanDevelopment Sector Unit, World Bank, 2004.

8 The Human Development Index is a comparative measure of poverty, literacy, education and lifeexpectancy. In 2003, 64% lived on less than $2.15 per day, the highest rate of poverty in Europe and CentralAsia, (World Bank, 2004, p.1).

9 Extreme poverty is measured in terms of Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) of less than $1.08 per day. WorldBank (2004), p.3–5.

Tajikistan’s management and technicalstaff, many of whom were of Russianorigin, left the country for good during thefirst wave of migration in the early 1990s10.

The Zarya Vostoka enterprise inTaboshar and Vostokredmet inChkalovsk used to be Tajikistan'slargest industrial enterprises,producing uranium and othernecessary and essentialcomponents for Soviet nuclearweapons. The towns of Chkalovskand Taboshar were managed andsupplied by Moscow, and theirpopulations consisted mainly ofRussians. However, production inthese enterprises declined andsome units even stopped operatingall together following the collapse ofthe Soviet Union and the disruptionof economic ties. A Tajik–USphosphorite-producing venture wasset up in 2003 on the basis ofChkalovsk's Vostokredmetenterprise in 2003. There are alsometallurgy and ore processingenterprises in the towns ofAdrasmon, Konsoy, Choruqdarronand Oltin Topkan. However,production also declined in thesetowns following the collapse of theSoviet Union and substantialinvestment is needed to revivethem. Moreover, there are severalhydroelectric power plants whoseconstruction or modernisation hasbeen halted since the 1980s.

For further details see theEurasianet website athttp://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav102804.shtml

Despite the privatisation of some industriesand services, and the introduction of landreform allowing small private farming, the

private sector is developing only slowlyoutside agriculture, and has by no meansbeen able to make up for the employmentlosses of the former state companies.Large industrial and agricultural complexesremain state owned, but are so heavilyindebted or in need of modernisationinvestment that they are difficult toprivatise. Much of the privatisation,especially of farms in rural areas, has leftlarge numbers of people without anyproperty and hence without a source ofincome11. These developments haveresulted in high levels of unemployment,widespread poverty, a growing informalsubsistence-based economy, and highlevels of internal and external labourmigration. Corruption and drug traffickinghave become an important source ofincome for large numbers of people12.

Migration and remittances

Migration has also been a key strategy forcoping with poverty in recent years andappears to have played a major role infalling poverty rates since 1999. Anestimated 632,000 Tajiks – over 16% of theworking age population – work temporarilyoutside the country, mostly in construction,the oil and gas industries, motor vehicleand machinery manufacturing, the sale offruits and vegetables, catering, agriculture,shuttle trade and small-scale trade andmarkets in the Russian Federation13. Thissecond wave of migration dates from theend of the 1990s and continues to thepresent day.

About half of all migrants send money inthe form of remittances to their familiesback home. The total amount of theseremittances was estimated in 2002 to bebetween USD 200 million andUSD 230 million, around two-thirds of thenational budget14. Labour migration is soimportant for the Tajik economy that thegovernment is actually basing many of itssocial, employment and training policies on

17


10 Umarov and Rebkine (2003) estimate that 70–80% of the qualified workforce has left the country.

11 Gomart (2003).

12 One estimate suggests that over a third of Tajikistan’s economic activity may be associated with drugtrafficking, (World Bank, 2004, p. 9).

13 International Organization for Migration, Labour Migration from Tajikistan, 2003. The population consideredto be of working age in Tajikistan are those aged 15–63 years.

14 Op.cit.

attempts to sustain high levels of migration,while simultaneously seeking to improvethe labour market situation of its workersabroad.

Internal migration within the country wasalso important in the period 1999 – 2003.In the same period Tajikistan’s populationgrew by 10%, though there were largeregional differences. The population inregions with the highest poverty levels(Khatlon in the south and GBAO in thePamir Mountains) remained constant, whilethe number of inhabitants increased inricher regions, including the capital,Dushanbe, the agricultural Regions ofRepublican Subordination (RRS) in thecentre, and Sugd in the north15. Thisindicates a massive movement from ruralareas into the cities. In Dushanbe most ofthe apartments and housing areas left by

Russian and other migrants have beentaken over by families from the countryside,changing radically the demographic andcultural structure of the town. Internalmigration, together with the departure oflarge numbers of people from the urbanindustrial labour force, has resulted in anincreasing ‘ruralisation’ of Tajik society.

1.3 TAJIKISTAN’S FUTURE

Shifting alliances and open policy

options

Following independence, Tajikistan hashad to rely heavily on internationalassistance to finance its publicexpenditure, which is also under strainbecause of the country’s high level offoreign debt. In 2003, long-term debts

18


In October 2004 Tajikistan and the Russian Federation signed an agreement onmilitary and economic cooperation that includes the establishment of Russian militarybases in the country, a 49-year lease on an anti-missile warning system at Nurek, thewriting off of almost all debts, and the promise of considerable Russian investments.

In addition to the debt relief provided for in the Nurek agreement, Tajikistan will alsoreceive a USD 250 million investment in the Sangtuda hydroelectric station fromRussian energy company Unified Energy System (UES). Sangtuda had alreadysecured up to USD 200 million in investment from Iran. In exchange for granting controlof Nurek to Russia, Tajikistan will have USD 240 million of the USD 300 million debt itowes to Moscow written off. In return for giving Russia a stake in the 670-megawattstation at Sangtuda, Tajikistan will have an additional USD 50 million of its debt toRussia cleared. Construction began in 1987, but stalled with the collapse of the SovietUnion in 1991. The construction project, with an estimated cost of betweenUSD 320 million and USD 550 million, is scheduled for completion by the end of 2008.

Another Tajik energy complex, the Rugun hydroelectric dam, located 110kilometers to the south-east of Dushanbe, will receive USD 560 million from RusAl,one of the world’s three biggest aluminium companies, to get the project, stalledsince the 1980s, off the ground again. In addition to its Rugun investment, RusAlwill also provide USD 600 million over the next five years for the construction of analuminium smelter in southern Tajikistan. Overall, Russian private and state-ownedcompanies are expected to invest up to USD 2 billion over the next five years in theTajik economy. In a country with an estimated GDP of just under USD 7 billion for2003, that could grant Russian firms a sizeable interest in the local economy. Onthe other hand, these investments will obviously contribute to considerableemployment creation.

See the Eurasianet website for further details:http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav102804.shtml

15 World Bank (2004), p.9.

amounted to USD 985 million16, of whicharound USD 300 million was owed to theRussian Federation. Net foreign directinvestments, so far mainly from Russianbusinesses, have been minimal(USD 9.5 million in 2001 and 31.6 million in2003), however with an expected increasein the years to come due to foreigninterests in hydro-power and aluminium.The government had an immediate need toborrow from the international financinginstitutions for its recurrent budgetexpenditure and to rely heavily oninternational donor aid for themodernisation of its economy. It is currentlyreceiving the highest amount of EUassistance per capita in the region17. Withthe international loans, however, came thestandard macroeconomic policy conditions– generally known as the Washingtonconsensus – which aim to stabilise thenational budget and reduce inflation18.

In 2004, Tajikistan again found itself in theposition of being courted by the worldpowers and their geopolitical interests19.The current context is extremelycomplicated, with international security,ideological and religious hegemony, andeconomic (energy) interests at play from atleast four major international stakeholders:Russia, the EU, the United States andChina20. The policy options and policymessages that Tajikistan is receiving from

its international partners are contradictory,and it is difficult to say at this stage to whatextent the present government is dedicatedand committed to any particular policyadvice, or whether –very pragmatically – itis simply following the ‘argument of thepurse’. Political, economic and ideologicalalliances are continuously shifting, and it isnot easy to predict what the implications ofthis situation will be for policymaking in thefield of education and training21.

Poverty Reduction Strategy as the

framework for international assistance

In 2002 the government agreed on aPoverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP)which was prepared by a PresidentialWorking Group with assistance from theIMF and the World Bank22. The PRSPforms the overall policy framework forinternational financial assistance anddefines four priority areas for reducingpoverty:

� encouragement of accelerated, sociallyfair and labour-intensive economicgrowth, with the emphasis on export;

� efficient and fair provision of basicsocial services;

� targeted support to the poorest groupsin the population;

� efficient governance and improvedsecurity.

19


16 Asian Development Bank (2006)

17 From 1992 to 2000 the EU provided more than €350 million to Tajikistan, most of it in the form of grants. On 11October 2004 the EU and the Tajik government signed a Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA), thefinal one to be negotiated with a CIS partner country. The PCA provides for a significant strengthening ofrelations between the EU and the country concerned. At the same time, an Interim Agreement on Trade andTrade-related matters was signed. The EU is providing assistance through four instruments: humanitarianassistance through the Directorate-General for Humanitarian Aid (ECHO), the Food Security Programme,exceptional macrofinancial aid and the Tacis programme. The Food Security Programme and Tacis weresuspended in 1997 for security reasons, but were resumed in 2002. Tacis puts particular emphasis on povertyreduction, including community and rural development. It also gives priority to regional cooperation.

18 For a critical account of the government’s position vis-à-vis the international institutions and the internaltensions resulting from this, see Kurbanov (2004).

19 For an analysis of developments see Soucek (2000) and Meyer (2004).

20 Regional powers such as Iran and Turkey are also very active in the country.

21 The need for economic assistance appears to be driving Tajikistan’s diplomatic decisions. Most recently, thishas been the case in relation to the Russian Federation, in response to a redefined Russian foreign policy inthe region that includes an active military and economic presence backed up by investments and debt relief.According to Eurasianet, a key instrument in Russia’s efforts to restore its influence across the broaderregion may be the Central Asian Cooperation Organization (CACO), which was established in 2002 as aregional free-trade vehicle among member states Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.Frequent quarrelling among member states has so far frustrated attempts to promote free trade in CentralAsia. At the organisation’s summit in Dushanbe on 18 October 2004, Russia joined the organisation,pledging to help address regional issues including hydropower, trade and the struggle to contain Islamicradicalism. See Footnote 14.

22 Government of the Republic of Tajikistan (2002), World Bank (2004).

The agreed strategy includes givingattention to education, health, socialprotection, agriculture, privatisation, labourand private sector development,infrastructure and telecommunication, andenvironmental protection and tourism. As wellas focusing on the adoption of appropriatepolicies and actions in these sectors, thestrategy emphasises the need for effectivemacroeconomic management and efficientpublic administration23.

In order to be able to measure progress inthe fight against poverty, the governmenthas selected a number of povertyindicators and set itself specific quantitativetargets to be achieved for each of thesewithin a certain period. In the selection of

indicators, the government has adoptedsome of those that were established aspart of the Millennium DevelopmentGoals24 by the UN. Table 1 lists theindicators, the current situation in Tajikistanand the targets to be reached.25

VET and the Poverty Reduction Strategy

Although education is included as one ofthe priorities of the Poverty ReductionStrategy, it is mentioned in an even lessambitious formulation than in the relatedUN Millennium Goal and concerns mainlygeneral education. There is considerablecause for concern, as the enrolment ratesin primary and secondary education havefallen, especially among girls and children

20


Table 1: Poverty Reduction Targets in Tajikistan25

Indicator 2001

Mid-term

target for

2006

Target for

2015*

Population living below poverty line (%) 83 75 60

Primary education coverage (%) 77.7 82 90

Infant mortality rate per 1,000 live newborns(2000)

36.7 32 25

Maternal mortality rate per 100,000 livenewborns (2000)

43.1 40 35

Adult population with access to reproductivehealth services (%)

21.8 24 30

Share of private sector in GDP (%) 30 40 60

Population with access to clean drinkingwater (%)

51.2 58 80

Employment rate among able-bodiedcitizens (%)

56 59 65–70

Number of telephones per 100 residents 3.6 4 5

*Year established by the UN as a target year for the Millennium Development Goals

23 Questions have been raised from various sides concerning the lack of difference between the priorities andpolicy recommendations that now appear under the label of poverty reduction and those that were previouslypart of structural adjustment. These questions also concern the role of the financial institutions in defining thepoverty reduction agenda, which is officially supposed to be a government-driven process. Countries areapparently reluctant to propose alternative approaches, as they know the limits in terms of the policies thatinternational financial institutions are prepared to accept. Moreover, PRSPs remain heavily dependent ontraditional liberal macroeconomic conditionality. Critics of such macroeconomic policies have long called fora social impact analysis. The recent initiative by the World Bank to undertake such an impact analysis hasbeen met by new criticism that this should not be carried out by staff of the international institutionsthemselves. See among others Wilks and Lefrançois (2002). Indeed, an internal review of the Tajik PRSPjointly undertaken by the monitoring and assessment departments of the World Bank and the IMF comes toa similar conclusion. See International Monetary Fund and World Bank (2004). This review has not so farhad any particular practical consequences.

24 By 2015 all 191 UN member states have pledged to achieve eight development goals: eradicate extremepoverty and hunger; achieve universal primary education; promote gender equality and empower women;reduce child mortality; improve maternal health; combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; ensureenvironmental sustainability; and develop a global partnership for development.


from poor families, despite the right tocompulsory basic education26. In 1999there were fewer school places available insecondary education, despite the fact thatthe school-age population had increasedby 12%27. The physical condition of schoolfacilities had deteriorated as a result ofinsufficient maintenance and modernisationbefore 1991, and because of thedestruction that occurred during the civilwar and the lack of funds for subsequentreconstruction. Qualified teachers had leftbecause of low salaries and poor workingconditions, and curricula and teaching aidshad not been modernised for more than 20years. The government’s own budget foreducation had fallen by almost 40%between 1990 and 200028. Reversing thesetrends, especially in support of poorfamilies, is one of the top priorities of thegovernment’s Poverty Reduction Strategy.

VET does not appear as such under thepriority for education, although largenumbers of young people, not only frompoor families, are engaged in differentlevels and types of VET29. In the section onObjectives and Strategies for PovertyReduction, under the heading Privatisation,Labour and Private Sector Development, itis stated that ‘labour market policies willaim to create a more flexible labour marketthrough training and retraining of workers,employment counselling and providing helpin seeking jobs’30. In the section on CurrentSituation, Issues and Priorities for PovertyReduction there is only one smallparagraph under the Privatisation, Labourand Private Sector Development prioritythat refers to the deteriorating level of skillsof the labour force, the main cause beingidentified as a lack of budgetary funds31.

Reform of VET is not mentioned at all as apriority for poverty reduction. The prioritiesfor poverty reduction under thePrivatisation heading are formulated asfollows:

Expansion and growth in privatesector activity and development ofmechanisms to encourageemployment and labourrelationships will be one of thedriving forces for reducing poverty.The government’s primary task inencouraging private sectordevelopment and facilitate effectivegrowth in employment (sic). Thisinvolves (a) development of thelegislation and a regulatoryframework concerning entry and exitof enterprises and the use of labour;(b) increasing competition throughprivatisation, with priority beinggiven to privatisation in theagricultural sector; (c) measures todevelop financial markets and thesupply of credits; (d) development ofmechanisms to effectively managethe labour market; and(e) establishment of labourrelationships regulationinstitutions32.

Elsewhere in the PRSP, in the section inwhich measures are described, it is statedthat ‘reform of vocational education willinvolve a range of measures includingrehabilitation of buildings and re-equipmentof training facilities; revision of curricula toreflect international standards; andprovision of targeted assistance to poor

21


26 Enrolment rates in primary and basic education were virtually 100% at the time of independence. Theserates have declined, and in 2003 were 98% in primary education and 94% in basic education. Non-enrolmentwas highest in urban areas, at 6% for boys and 18% for girls in basic education. Actual attendance levelswere lower, at 88% in 2003 in primary and basic education combined (and 82% in Dushanbe) (World Bank,2004).

27 Government of Tajikistan (2002), p.21.

28 This fell from an already low figure of USD 5.8 per capita in 1990 to USD 3.7 in 2000 (Government ofTajikistan, 2002, p.22).

29 In most EU countries, in fact, VET is considered an integral part of the education system.




students’33. Furthermore, under all otherpriorities, except the one concerningmacroeconomic management and growth,the need to improve the skills andknowledge of people working in thesesectors is mentioned. Skills developmentneeds of these different sectors (publicadministration, social protection, education,health care, agriculture, infrastructure andcommunication, environmental protectionand tourism) are apparently not seen asbeing covered by an overall VET system.

Tajikistan remains heavily dependent oninternational assistance to attain thetargets that are set in the PRSP. The entirestate budget in 2004 was USD 300 million;initial estimates put the cost of meeting theMillennium Development Goals oneducation, health and water alone ataround USD 450 million annually throughto 201534. Until recently, no major externalfunds or assistance have been provided forVET35. In fact, the implicit message fromthe international financing institutions hasso far been that Tajikistan can no longerafford to finance a VET system such as theone it had inherited36.

This report takes a different view. It arguesneither for simply restoring the inheritedVET system nor for destroying it. If localpolicymakers are convinced that they needa VET system, their views should be takenseriously. There is a history and aninstitutional heritage embodied in VET. Theinherited system is impoverished, largelyobsolete and without direct relevance toemerging labour market needs, and would

therefore need to be reformed andmodernised. In order to support thedevelopment of a modern VET system it ispossible to draw on the policy experiencesof EU Member States in improving thecompetence levels of their populations, andalso to take on board recent concernswithin the international donor communityabout the need to pay more attention to(formal and informal) skills development foreconomic and social development37.

Skills development and poverty

reduction

One of the Millennium Goals is to achieveuniversal primary education, and PRSPsalso give some attention to improving theaccess to and quality of education. Theinclusion of education among theMillennium Goals is remarkable given thatdevelopment funding for education andtraining decreased dramatically during the1990s in the context of structuraladjustment policies and liberalisation38.However, there is increasing concern thatPRSPs do not provide appropriateframeworks to enable proper attention tobe given to the importance of educationand training for poverty reduction. One ofthe critical issues is the almost exclusivefocus on basic literacy and primaryeducation. Another is the insufficientattention given to employment issues inPRSPs39.

In recent debates there has beenincreasing support, among both donorsand researchers, for broadening the

22


33 Government of Tajikistan (2002), p.43. The budget part of the PRSP, covering the period 2002 –2006,anticipates that USD 1,404,000 (USD 1,389,000 of this from external sources) will be required to finance theplanned measures. The indicators are: 30 school buildings repaired; 30 vocational education institutionsequipped; 113 new curricula developed; 1,100 system specialists trained; package of normative documentsfor vocational education institutions introduced; programme of targeted training at vocational educationinstitutions implemented. Op. cit. p.66.

34 United Nations (2005).

35 The first major support for VET reform came from the EU Tacis Programme.

36 See among others World Bank (briefing note) (2004). The Ministry of Labour and Social Protection, whichhas been responsible for the basic vocational school sector since 1996, has been engaged in lengthydiscussions with the international financial institutions. Support for the Ministry’s position has included aPresidential Decree in favour of maintaining a dedicated system of basic vocational education, while theinternational financial institutions have argued for closing it down. The government has realised that it needsa reform concept and strategy if it wishes to seek international assistance for the sector.

37 See for an overview King and Palmer (2005).

38 For a description of these trends see McGrath (2002).

39 However, there are signs that Tajikistan will incorporate special reference to the need to reform the VETsystem in order that it can be used to reduce poverty, in the revised PRSP under discussion with theinternational lending institutions in early 2005.

concept of primary (or basic) education toinclude basic vocational education40. Basicliteracy is not sufficient to guarantee thatpoor people will be able to find or developa sustainable source of income throughemployment. The concept of basiceducation therefore needs to include basicskills and competences. Ensuring that thelearning needs of all young people andadults are met through equitable access toappropriate learning and life skillsprogrammes is one of the six Dakar goalsfor achieving Education for All (EFA).UNESCO has introduced several initiativesto support the integration of a vocationalskills training component in EFA NationalAction Plans. The ILO strategy for DecentWork recognises that a well-functioningsystem of education and training enhancesboth economic and social integration byoffering opportunities to many groups whowould otherwise be excluded from thelabour market. The European Commissionstresses the vital importance of training inreducing poverty and in development, andstates that technical education andvocational training are necessary for theestablishment of an education system thatoffers an alternative to students leaving thesystem who will ultimately provide a skilledworkforce for the formal and informalsectors. Several bilateral donors, such asthe UK Department for InternationalDevelopment (DFID), the GermanGesellschaft fur TechnischeZusammenarbeit (GTZ) and the SwissAgency for Development and Cooperation(SDC), are currently undertaking reviews ofthe links between basic education andskills development in developmentprojects41.

The discussions on rethinking the role ofeducation and training for poverty reductionhave a parallel in policy and researchdebates on the importance of competencesfor economic development and socialcohesion in developed countries, and inparticular in EU Member States.Increasingly, the concept of competenceshas replaced more traditional notions suchas knowledge and skills. Behind this shift infocus is a combination of a number of

developments: the changing nature of workin the employment system; new appliedknowledge and broader skill requirementsposed by change; and new insights fromlearning theories about how people learnand can make use of what they havelearned42. It is widely understood thatimproving the contribution made by skillsdevelopment to economic prosperity andsocial cohesion will imply considerablereforms in the existing VET systems.

These debates pose tremendouschallenges for the reform of VET systems,in particular in countries such as Tajikistanwhich are now affected by high povertylevels, and which, though they have a longtradition of public VET, have seen theirsystems become obsolete and theirinfrastructures and capacities deteriorateduring the transition period. The povertyreduction context provides an urgent policyframework for re-establishing the relevanceof VET for both individual learners and theemerging employment system.

The macroeconomic context, particularlythe severe limits on state budgets andadministrative capacity, suggests that thepotential for poverty reduction througheconomic growth lies, among othermeasures, in developing and utilisingexisting human resources more efficiently,and in setting appropriate conditions fordevelopment of skills in support of publicand private employment initiatives at locallevel.

This report argues for assisting Tajikistanin developing a well-balanced educationsystem in which the various levels(pre-school, primary, secondary and highereducation), sectors (general, vocational,professional and academic) and targetgroups (young people and adults) receivesupport that does not lead to theoversupply or undersupply of graduates atvarious qualification levels. Neither anoveremphasis on primary education norone on higher education will serveTajikistan well for its future social andeconomic development. EU experienceshows that modern and flexible economies

23


40 See for the debate King and Palmer (2005)

41 The ETF launched a project in 2005 in Central Asia on skills development for poverty reduction.

42 See for an overview Grootings and Nielsen, ETF (2005)

need a strong body of qualified labour atthe middle level of the qualification range43.Only a well-functioning public VET systemcan guarantee the availability of such astrong stratum of workers with mid-level

qualifications in the labour force. Moreover,such mid-level qualified labour is needed inall sectors of the economy, and hence anoverall VET policy needs to bedeveloped44.

24


43 The qualification structure necessary for modern economies takes the shape of an onion rather than of aninverted pyramid.

44 For a review of this discussion see Grootings, ETF (2004).

2. VOCATIONAL EDUCATION

AND TRAINING IN

TAJIKISTAN

2.1 INTRODUCTION

In the years following Tajikistan’sindependence, the VET system receivedlittle attention, either from the governmentor from the international donor community.In fact, on the government side there was a‘survival-only’ strategy: existing facilitiesand teaching capacities were kept at aminimum operational level, and noresources were made available to improvecapacities and adapt infrastructures to therealities of a changing society. As a result,VET has largely lost its immediaterelevance for the employment system andits attractiveness for young people. Inparticular, the lower-level basic vocationalschools have developed a reputation forproviding welfare for children from poorfamilies, rather than being places in whichyoung people acquire knowledge and skillsthat are relevant for work. The publicdiscussions concerning VET tend to referonly to these basic vocational schools,

whereas so-called technical education isgenerally considered to be part ofsecondary (specialised) education45.

Renewed interest in VET came about in2002 with the preparation of the PRSP.Although the PRSP gave only marginalattention to VET as such, at least theissues of the knowledge and skills of theworkforce were put on the policy agenda.

The basic features of the VET system willfirst be presented. This description paints arather desperate picture of the currentsituation. However, before jumping to quickconclusions, it is important to understandhow VET has reached such a hopelesssituation. The current state of VET will beplaced in a historical context. This willshow that many of the present problemsare not simply the result of neglect anddestruction since the early 1990s, but goback to the years before independence andthe civil war. It will also demonstrate that

25

2

45 In this report we shall use a broader concept of VET to include all levels and all forms of VET, not only thatwhich is provided by basic vocational schools.

the main problems are systemic in nature.The VET system in Tajikistan, as inheritedfrom the Soviet times, collapsed togetherwith the all-Soviet education andemployment systems of which it was anintegral part.

Basic vocational schools have particularlysuffered in this respect, and the report willtherefore give additional attention to theseschools. While it is important to understandthat some of the main roots of the presentsituation in VET are to be found in thebreakdown of the broader institutionalsetting, a policy for reform should beequally embedded in a wider humanresource development policy for social andeconomic development. A key issue in thiscontext is to ensure that the education andtraining system as a whole is able torespond, flexibly and on a lifelong basis, tothe learning aspirations of individuals andthe training needs of the employmentsector. Skills development, and inparticular VET for the lower and middlelevel of qualifications that are needed inany economy (formal and informal), needsto have its proper and recognised place inan overall education and training system.

In the next section of this chapter it will beargued that the potential scope for VET islarge in quantitative terms. However,although the VET system will still have tocater for relatively large numbers of people,the composition of its future clientele will bevery heterogeneous. Students in VETincreasingly have very different learningand skills development needs. This, takentogether with the absence of clear signalsfor skills development from the formal andinformal employment system, calls forconsiderable changes in the way VET isorganised and in what it delivers. A briefdescription in the final section of thecurrent VET reform policy initiativesindicates that there is a growing awarenessof the nature of the problems, but thatreform is still in its very early stages.

2.2 CURRENT SITUATION INVET

Structure of the education system in

Tajikistan46

Since 1996 compulsory basic education inTajikistan has covered grades 1–9(lowered from 11 grades), including fouryears of primary education and five yearsof lower secondary education. Pupils entergrade 1 during the year in which they turnseven years of age, and leave compulsoryeducation at the age of 16. At that age,school graduates have only gone throughbasic general education and have not yetachieved any vocational qualification.Those leaving the education systemimmediately following compulsoryeducation therefore enter the labour marketas unskilled workers. On the other hand,education legislation guarantees eachstudent free access to any school at uppersecondary (general or vocational) and – ona competitive base – technical (secondaryspecialised) and higher level, in order toachieve their first work-relatedqualification47.

Following completion of compulsory basiceducation the Tajik education system offersa number of different options, includinggeneral upper secondary, vocational andtechnical education, or combinations ofthese. These different types of programmeare provided in different schools, thoughsome schools integrate different types ofprogramme48.

Following completion of general uppersecondary education students can continueto either higher education, technical(secondary specialised) or vocationaleducation. After technical educationstudents can continue to higher education.Students can enter post-secondary andhigher public schools free of charge on thebasis of competition for limited places. Theycan also gain access on a fee-paying basis.

26


46 See Burnett and Temourov (2002).

47 UNESCO (2000).

48 Since independence, new types of school have been established, such as lyceums, gymnasiums andcombined kindergarten-school complexes. Lyceums cover grades 6–11 and are specialised, usually in suchsubjects as economics and humanities. Gymnasiums cover grades 1–11 and have a more comprehensivecurriculum with in-depth teaching in certain subjects; they are more academically oriented. Since 1994 theestablishment of private schools at all levels has been permitted.

The education system includes the followingtypes and levels of schooling (see overleaf):

� Pre-schools� General schools:

� primary education grades 1–4;� lower secondary or basic education

grades 5–9, after which a certificateof ‘incomplete secondary education’is issued;

� upper secondary education grades10–11, after which a certificate of‘complete secondary education’ isissued.

� Vocational schools (PTUs)49:� basic vocational education grades

10, or 10 and 11, after which avocational qualification certificate isissued;

� basic vocational education combinedwith complete secondary educationgrades 10–12, after which acertificate of ‘complete secondaryeducation’ and of a vocationalqualification is issued;

� basic vocational education aftersecondary education coveringgrades 12, or 12 and 13, after whicha vocational qualification certificateis issued.

� Technical colleges (specialisedsecondary schools)50:� secondary technical education

combined with complete secondaryeducation grades 10–13, after whicha secondary professional educationcertificate is issued;

� secondary technical educationgrades 12–13 after secondarygeneral education, or grades 13–14after initial vocational education,after which a secondary professionaleducation certificate is issued.

� Higher education institutions:� junior specialist education of two

years’ duration;

� four-year Bachelor’s degrees aftersecondary education, initialvocational education combined withcomplete secondary education, andafter both types of technicaleducation;

� two-year Master’s degrees aftercompleting a Bachelor’s degree;

� PhD.

For school leavers who have achieved avocational qualification without a completesecondary education, progression to higherlevels of education is not possible.Graduates with a certificate of completesecondary education can continue intoeither technical or higher education.Graduates with a certificate of the one totwo-year vocational programmes afterfinishing complete secondary generaleducation can progress to higher levels ofeducation, but only based on theirsecondary general education certificate:they would receive no transfer of creditsfrom the vocational portion if theysubsequently enrolled in, for example,technical education.

The vocational schools are thereforealmost completely isolated within theoverall education system, and effectivelycreate dead-end educational pathways fortheir students. Graduates are expected toenter the labour market upon achievingtheir vocational certificates. In 2002, onlyaround 4% of the graduates of vocationaleducation continued in technical and highereducation51. As elsewhere in the formerSoviet Union there has been an initiative tolink specialised secondary schools tohigher education institutions52. This wouldfurther contribute to the widening of thegap between vocational schools and othertypes and levels of education.

27

2. VOCATIONAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING IN TAJIKISTAN

49 The schools that provide basic vocational education are referred to in a number of different ways, such asbasic vocational schools, initial vocational schools and vocational schools. The authors of this report will usethe term ‘vocational school’.

50 The schools that provide secondary specialised education/technical education are referred to in a number ofdifferent ways, such as technicum schools, secondary specialised schools, colleges and technical colleges.The authors of this report have opted for the term ‘technical colleges’.

51 Information provided by MoLSP, March 2004.

52 Decree 96 of the Government of the Republic of Tajikistan, State Education Standard of Higher ProfessionalEducation, February 23, 1996.

28


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Age

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Compulsoryeducation

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12 11 10 9 8 7

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14 6

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ste

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n2

This diagram represents the first stage in the ongoing development of a standard graphical model for vocational education andtraining systems. Future refinement may include the further alignment of terms, student enrolment and dropout figures, andlocal language terms.

Ba

sic

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Ba

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TU

Vocational schools, technical colleges

and other training centres

The provision of vocational and technicaleducation is strictly institution-based, and isoffered almost exclusively by schools fromthe public system. Vocational schoolsunder the authority of the Ministry ofLabour and Social Protection (MoLSP)deliver vocational education for workersoccupations, and the technical schoolsunder the authority of the Ministry ofEducation (MoE) and a number of otherline ministries deliver education fortechnician and specialist occupations.There is almost no cooperation betweenthe ministries in charge – nor betweenindividual schools – on such issues asoptimising the use of the delivery networksthrough the sharing of facilities and staff,and reviewing curricula.

From a comparative view the classificationof vocational and technical schools andqualifications used in Tajikistan, aselsewhere in the former Soviet Union, isconfusing, as they are all located at ISCEDlevel 3, though they clearly prepare forrather distinct levels of qualification andtypes of occupation53. In reality, existingvocational and technical schools cover therange ISCED 2–4. As in all other former

Soviet countries, the Tajik educationsystem defines two main types ofvocational and technical schools.

� Basic vocational schools used to beattached to large industrial, service andagricultural enterprises, and since 1996have been administered by the MoLSP.These schools train students forsemi-skilled and skilled jobs in specificenterprises. They have traditionallybeen very skill-oriented, and alsoprovided practical training, in eitherschool or enterprise-based workshops.However, the guaranteed trainingpartnership with large state-ownedenterprises has been lost, and mostschools have become detached frompractical training opportunities. Thedelivery network of vocational schoolshas remained virtually unchanged since1991. In the school year 2003/04 therewere 71 vocational schools, threetraining centres under the employmentservices and nine business centres inmountainous areas, all delivering basicvocational training54. Of all thevocational schools, around 54 areagricultural schools in rural areas55.Vocational schools are relatively small,with on average 40 staff and around350 registered students.

29


ISCED Levels (International Standard Classification of Education):

ISCEDlevel Primary Basic

Upper

secondary

education

Technical

education

Vocational

educationBachelor Master PhD

1 x

2 x

3 x

x (1 & 2year after

compulsoryeducation)

x

4 x

5 x x

6 x

53 See also Godfrey (2002).

54 Included in the total number of vocational schools are 16 vocational lyceums, one specialised vocationalschool and two evening schools. Of these schools, 15 are located in Dushanbe (including five vocationallyceums, one specialised school and one evening school); 20 in the Khatlon region (including two vocationallyceums), 24 in the Sogdian region (including seven vocational lyceums), 12 in the central region (includingone vocational lyceum and one evening school) and one vocational lyceum in the GBAO.

55 However, only around 35 operate exclusively as schools, with the others having rented out their premises forother purposes. In fact, there is little reliable information available on what is really happening in schools interms of teachers and students in the classroom. Three vocational schools were recently transformed intofull-time training centres for the employment services.

� There are 58 technical colleges, ofwhich eight have entered intocooperation with institutions of highereducation56. Technical colleges preparestudents for mid-level technical andprofessional occupations in such areasas teaching (20 colleges), health (12colleges), industry and trade. Thesecolleges are administered by the MoEand by a large number of otherspecialised ministries and stateagencies. They used to offer analternative, longer route for studentswho could not enter upper secondarygeneral and higher education directly.Entry to technical colleges was basedon the results of entry exams taken atthe end of grade 9 or grade 11.Numbers of students were defined bythe needs of the respective ministriesand their organisations.

Facilities and equipment are in a miserablestate in the vast majority of vocationalschools, and are not much better in technicalcolleges. Hardly any investment has beenmade in new equipment for at least 20 years.

Enrolment, attainment and dropouts

Net enrolment rates in compulsoryeducation have fallen during the pastdecade. During Soviet times net enrolmentin primary and basic education wasvirtually 100%. According to the WorldBank Education Sector Review, in 1999 netprimary enrolment was officially around

92%, and according to survey data was aslow as 82%57. According to 2003 figures,net enrolment was 98% in primaryeducation and 94% in basic education58. In2004, around 98% of the relevant cohortcompleted grade 9. The fall in enrolment,attendance and completion rates must beseen against the background of theemergence of poverty and the immediateeffects of the civil war, which left manyschools without functioning electricity andheating systems for many years. However,as can be seen from official figures inTable 2, total enrolment in secondarygeneral education has increasedsubstantially from 84,900 in 1998/99 to163,000 in 2003/04. This positive trendmay be ascribed to the more stable socialand economic situation now, given the timethat has elapsed since the civil war.Information about actual participation is,however, not available.

Total enrolment in both vocational andtechnical education has decreasedsubstantially in absolute numbers, in spiteof the larger population cohorts in therelevant age groups. Of the students whocompleted basic education in 2003/04,around 50% continued in upper secondaryeducation, 10% went into vocational ortechnical education. Around 40% did notcontinue their education beyond thecompulsory level, and together with thosewho did not complete compulsory education,they constitute a significant influx ofunskilled workers to the labour market.

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Table 2: Total enrolment in education in selected years (in thousands)

1990/91 1995/96 1998/99 2000/01 2003/04

Primary and basiceducation (1–9)

1139.6 1198.2 1347.1 1369.8. 1496.9

Secondary education(10–11)

170.6 111.9 84.9 131.6 163.0

Vocational education 41.9 30.6 24.7 24.5 24.2

Technical education * 26.8 19.4 23.2 29.2

Higher education 69.3 * 75.5 77.7 107.6

*number not available

Source: Annual Handbook 2004, Tajikistan. Ministry of Education

56 There is also an industrial-technical pedagogical college (based in Dushanbe, with a recently opened affiliatecollege in Khujand, in the Sogdian region).

57 World Bank, ‘Tajikistan Education Sector Review’, 10 October 2002.

58 World Bank, ‘Tajikistan Poverty Assessment Update’, Main Report, Washington, 2004.

In addition to these workers, those wholeave the education system after uppersecondary education also enter the labourmarket without qualifications, albeit with ahigher general education level. This makesa total of more than 100,000 new entrantsto the labour market every year who haveno qualifications59. In contrast, the totalnumber of people benefiting fromshort-term skills courses is limited toaround 5,000 per year.

Challenges in general education

Efforts to improve education in Tajikistan inthe mid 1990s focused first and foremoston re-establishing acceptable physicalinfrastructures, including adequate heating,electricity, roofs and windows. Theinfrastructure problems were furtheraccentuated by a rapid increase in thenumber of school-age children. Thesebasic challenges have still not been fullymet. Many schools, especially outside thecapital, function in a multiple shift systemand have not yet been refurbished60.

Subsequently the focus has moved to thecontent of general education and teachers’qualifications and salaries. Some of themost significant drawbacks of the Sovietapproach to general education, whichpersisted in Tajikistan, were an overloadedtimetable, a large number of different andunrelated subjects, and strong emphasison academic and rote learning. Teachingwas teacher-centred. Furthermore,Tajikistan had no national assessmentsystem, and there is accordingly no clearunderstanding of how the educationsystem performs in terms of learningoutcomes. The approach to generaleducation is mirrored in the generaleducation elements of vocational andtechnical education, and rather thanencouraging less academically mindedpupils to remain within the educationsystem, it encourages them to drop out.

Reform has begun, but the old approachescontinue to be the norm, though thenumber of different subjects has beenreduced.

Qualification levels

The general understanding in Tajikistan isthat the VET programmes provideprogrammes at ISCED level 3 for skilledworkers, and that the technical collegesprovide qualifications at ISCED level 4 fortechnicians. However, the system is verysupply-oriented and hence is not based onan analysis and clear understanding of thedifferent qualification levels existing on thelabour market. The difference between thelevel and complexity of the vocational partof the various vocational programmes, andthe different levels at which they areexpected to qualify are not very clear.There is a lack of transparency in terms ofthe system and the qualifications itprovides.

In VET the various types of programme aredefined primarily in terms of their generaleducation content and weight. Thus themain argument for choosing between, forexample, the one to two-year programmeor the three-year programme after 9thgrade is whether or not the student wishesto obtain complete secondary educationtogether with the vocational skills. It is notbased on an assessment of thequalification level for which the studentwishes to be prepared on the labourmarket. By the same token it is not fullyclear what the difference is in terms ofacquired skills between the different VETprogrammes and the short (maximum threemonths) courses which are provided, forexample through the employment services.

The prevailing emphasis on generaleducation and the short period of time thatis actually devoted to vocational theory andskills training lead to the conclusion thatupon graduation from vocational schools orcolleges, the students are not skilledworkers or technicians, but have reachedin reality lower qualification levels. Thisindicates that the system considers itself tobe providing a higher qualification levelthan it actually does.

31


59 The number of dropouts and the number of people leaving school without a qualification are based on roughcalculations from data provided by the MoE, the MoLSP and the World Bank.

60 The World Bank has for a number of years provided funds to refurbish primary and basic education facilities.

Vocational and technical education

programmes

The List of Occupations and Specialities inVET comprises 250 occupations andspecialities covering 33 sectors of theeconomy. There are VET programmes for93 occupations and specialities, andshort-term vocational training courses in40 different occupations and specialities.

The list of occupations has not beenreviewed since Soviet times, and istherefore not based on an understanding ofthe current labour market; nor areemployers involved in its preparation.Furthermore, the list of occupations doesnot take into account the different levelsand complexity of occupations in the labourmarket. Nevertheless, this list is currentlyused as the basis for the preparation ofeducation programmes. The list ofoccupations is not compatible with theISCO classification61.

In November 2002 a decree was approvedthat covered the general requirements(standard) of public secondary vocationaleducation including the list of approvedprofessions. The intention is that within thenext five years, standards should beprepared for all the approved professions,

with the involvement of ‘scientists,enterprise representatives and experts’.This process has not started because of alack of funding. There have beendiscussions on whether it would be morecost-effective to take over standards fromRussia and simply translate these intoTajik.

The most frequented programmes areshown in Table 3.

In addition to programmes offered byvocational schools and colleges, theEmployment Service, which is alsoadministered by the Ministry of Labour andSocial protection, offers short courses foryoung people and adults who areregistered as unemployed. The mostfrequently attended short vocationaltraining courses in 2003 were: tailor orseamstress (1,480); PC operator (1,003);bookkeeper (725); farmer (270); tractoroperator (188); secretary (168). The totalnumber of people trained was 5,53562.Tailoring is the most frequently attendedformal and non-formal VET programme. Infact, tailoring represents over a quarter ofall new qualifications awarded. Though thenumber of tractor drivers who graduatewas previously higher, it still representsaround 20% of all new graduates.

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Table 3: Number of graduates from the most frequented VET programmes in

selected years

1991 1996 1999 2001 2002

Total no of graduates 24,705 18,270 15,730 13,649 13,672

Train conductors andassistants

1,352 667 644 295 328

Wood processors andcarpenters

1,620 1,012 704 317 224

Plumbers 3,105 1,402 1,790 1,367 1,178

Electrical assembling andmechanical engineers

654 811 559 518 268

Welders 1,590 1,084 389 648 483

Tractor drivers 3,669 3,091 2,024 2,416 2,590

Tailors 2,675 2,219 1,823 3,800 3,630

Automobile drivers 1,734 707 397 662 890

Source: Ministry of Labour and Social Protection, March 2004

61 Following consultations with local stakeholders in four countries (Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan andUzbekistan), in 2005 the ETF launched a regional project on the reforms of national classifiers. The projectconnects these reform discussions to ongoing debates in EU and OECD countries on National QualificationFrameworks.

62 State Employment Services, March 2004

This partly reflects the fact that Tajikistan isa rural society, but also, more significantly,that VET relating to an occupation of thepast is still provided, and that it has notbeen sufficiently replaced by moreall-round farming qualifications. In fact,farming is not among the most popularprogrammes.

Contents and curricula

Curricula and learning materials date fromthe early 1980s, and were developed andprovided by the central authorities in theformer Soviet Union. These are nowoutdated in pedagogical and technologicalterms, while the capacity – both financialand professional – to modernise VETprogrammes is still severely limited.Training provision remains highlysupply-driven, based on infrastructures,school capacities and curricula inheritedfrom the past. It is dominated by thedelivery of programmes for occupations forwhich there is little demand on the labourmarket, while emerging job opportunities inthe formal and informal economy are notcatered for.

In 2002, a National Standard for VocationalEducation63 was approved. This regulatesthe relation between general andvocational education and practical trainingwithin VET programmes, the total numberof hours for programmes, and theircertification. It also defines occupationallevels.

The three-year programmes after the 9thgrade have 4,889 teaching hours. Generaleducation makes up 43% of these hours,vocational theory 24% and practicaltraining 39%. There is an overload ofsubjects, with 17 different subjects alone ingeneral education. There is hardly any linkbetween the general education element ofthe curriculum, vocational theory andpractical training. Furthermore, practicaltraining suffers greatly from a lack of

adequately equipped workshops and thevirtual disappearance of company-basedpractical training.

The Methodological Scientific Centre of theMoLSP has been in charge of the revisionof existing and development of newcurricula64. However, there is limitedcapacity to develop new curricula, and verylittle change has been made to thecurricula implemented when Tajikistanbecame independent. The few newcurricula that have been introduced werecopied from Russia. This means that thecurricula are not adapted to the nationaland or local situation in Tajikistan. Schoolscan take the initiative to propose a newcurriculum, which will eventually have to beapproved by the MoLSP. However, inpractice this rarely happens65.

Teachers and trainers

As of 1 January 2004, 3,120 professionalstaff were officially employed in vocationalschools. This number has increased since2002 (when it stood at 2,803). The numberincludes full-time and part-time teachersand trainers. Over 25% of staff are female,although among teachers of special andvocational subjects the proportion is morethan 50%.

Table 4 shows that most management staffand general/social subject teachers havehigher education or – as is the case foralmost a third of general educationteachers – technical education. More thanhalf of vocational theory teachers andpractical trainers have technical education,and the vast majority of the rest havehigher education. This indicates that almostall vocational teachers and trainers havean educational background at least onelevel higher than that which they teach.

In general there is concern among TajikVET policymakers that the qualificationlevels of teaching staff in vocational

33


63 Decree No 419 of 4 November 2002 on the National Standard for Vocational Education in the Republic ofTajikstan.

64 It should be noted that numbers of staff employed in the VET Department and the Methodological Centre arevery low. Each unit has about five staff members and no external VET support institutions exist.

65 Two internationally supported projects assist the Methodological Scientific Centre in building up capacity incurriculum development. One project is supported by Deutsche Entwicklungsdienst and the other by theTacis programme. However, these are smaller pilot initiatives and have not yet been able to introduce anychanges at a system-wide level.

34


schools are relatively low, in terms of boththeir education levels and the nature of thetechnical and pedagogical education theyhave received. Of greater concern,however, is the fact that relatively fewteachers and trainers have real practicalwork experience. If practical experience isavailable, this has become largely outdatedand still stems from the pre-1991 period.

Practical trainers are trained at theTechnological-Pedagogical College inDushanbe and at its affiliated institution inKhujand. In 2005, there were 1,158 studentsin the two institutions, and there were 202graduates in 2005. The college trainstrainers in six fields as shown in table 5.

The lack of adequate training facilities inthe college and the limited industrialtraining provision prevent the developmentof relevant occupational skills. A largenumber of the trainers are not familiar withtechnological developments in their field,

and furthermore have little or no practicalexperience of the occupations for whichthey train. Although not apparent fromTable 5, it appears that most newlyrecruited trainers arrive in vocationalschools straight from the Technological-Pedagogical College without any priorindustry experience, or, increasingly, aregraduates who come directly from thevocational schools themselves. The collegenow provides both a Master’s qualificationand a Bachelor’s degree in the relevantsubject area, which means that studentsare not necessarily attending simply inorder to become trainers in VETinstitutions. One aspect of the appeal of allkinds of higher education is that youngmen with a higher education diploma areexempt from military service.

Teachers of general subjects andvocational theory are trained at the TajikPedagogical University and its IndustrialPedagogical Faculty, respectively.

Table 4: Educational level of professional staff in vocational schools as of

1 January 2004

Total no of

staff

Higher

education

Technical

education

Other

education

Management staff 322 88%** 12% 0%

Practical trainers 1,509 40% 56% 4%

Social subjectteachers

152 100% 0% 0%

General educationteachers

620 71% 29% 0%

Vocational theoryteachers

305 47% 53% 0%

Others* 212 67% 31% 2%

*Includes mentors, physical education teachers and military teachers

**Directors and deputy directors almost all have higher education, compared with only 50% of senior masters.

Source: Department of VET, Ministry of Labour and Social Protection, March 2004

Table 5: Number of graduates in the Technological-Pedagogical College according

to field of specialisation in 2003-05

Specialisation 2003 2004 2005

Technical services and auto mechanics 50 77 53

Agricultural machinery 8 30 27

Sewing 15 36 25

Industrial and civil engineering 10 15 26

Motor vehicle and motor transport services - 5 32

Electricity - 6 39

Total 83 169 202

The latter has recently been renamed asthe Technology and EntrepreneurshipFaculty, though its functions remain largelythe same, as do its educationalprogrammes. Policymakers are alsoconcerned about the quality of the teachereducation programmes. They see the needto expand facilities for teacher and trainer’straining to institutions outside the capitaland to improve the quality of the educationprogrammes provided.

The in-service training system for teachersand trainers has virtually collapsed andmost teachers and trainers have been ableto update neither their pedagogicalknowledge and skills nor the knowledgeand skills relating to the subjects theyteach since the 1980s. Professionalteaching literature, journals andmagazines, such as those from Russia,which used to be widely available andeasily accessible, are now very difficult toobtain. Even those teachers and trainerswho previously updated themselves out ofprofessional interest now find it difficult, ifnot impossible, to do so.

The attractiveness of a career as a teacheror trainer in VET is at an absolute low.Salary levels are not sufficient to support afamily. While in 1989 average teachingsalaries were on a par with overall averagesalary levels, this situation changeddramatically during the 1990s. In 1999average monthly salaries in education were5,508 roubles, whereas the overall averagewas 10,374, and as high as 31,746 roublesin industry66. In practice an ordinaryteacher would earn around a third of theamount considered to be the poverty line.Many teachers are forced to seekalternative incomes, or have left teachingaltogether. As a consequence the teachingforce is ageing rapidly, and it is very difficultto attract young teachers. Although salarylevels for teachers have increased withother civil servant salaries, the startinglevels were very low, and this has had onlya limited effect on disposable income.

Governance and management

The MoE is in charge of the managementof all parts of the education system,

including technical education, with theexception of the basic vocational schools,of which the MoLSP is in charge. Thedivision of responsibility between the twoministries for the two levels of education isreflected in the strong divide between thetwo delivery networks, consisting oftechnical schools (colleges) and vocationalschools, respectively. Both ministriesmaintain a centralised managementstructure for the two subsystems. The MoEalso maintains full control of the generaleducation element of vocational curricula,and decides the certificate for which agiven vocational programme can qualify.This means that there can be no revision ofthe content of VET programmes without thefull participation of the MoE.

The social partners are currently notinvolved in any aspect of the governanceand management of the VET system.There is no national council of socialpartners that could serve as a platform fordiscussing the future development of theVET system in Tajikistan. In fact, thelegacy of the Soviet times is very evident inthe understanding of who is considered torepresent employers. The view is still thatthe Ministries of Agriculture and Industryare the most relevant employerrepresentatives with whom the future of theVET system should be discussed.

In the MoLSP the VET Department is incharge of policy development, preparationof legislation, the definition of the NationalStandard for Vocational Education, andoverall management and monitoring. TheScientific Methodological Centre for VET isresponsible for the development ofcurricula and teaching plans, textbooks andmanuals, technical facilities and thedissemination of external experience. Theinstitutional capacity of both units is limited.The VET Department has to a large extentfocused on the day-to-day survival of thecurrent school network; the ScientificMethodological Centre has been unable toprepare new curricula and textbooks. TheMoE is in charge of setting therequirements for the general educationcomponent of VET, and developing therelated curricula and textbooks.

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66 UNESCO (2000).

The responsibilities of the vocationalschools have up to now been very limited.They have received planning figures fromthe MoLSP VET Department for thenumber of students to be enrolled in eachprogramme, and must manage the budgetaccording to a strict line-item budgetsystem. However, the ministry hasdeveloped plans to give schools theresponsibility for proposing the occupationsto be offered and the number of students tobe enrolled in each programme, with effectfrom the school year starting September2006. This move away from a strictlycentralised approach is echoed at theregional level with the establishment of asmall regional department for vocationaleducation. The technical colleges arecentrally managed and do not have anyreal autonomy.

The national budget for education as ashare of GDP fell from the time ofindependence until 1996, and has sincethen increased only slightly. In 2004 the totalgovernment budget for VET wasTJS 4.82 million and the budget allocated toschools was TJS 1.12 million (€ 1.63 millionand € 0.38 million, respectively). In 2001 thetotal budget for VET was just over€ 1 million. Though the government hasincreased expenditure on education and theper-student financing has increased again inrecent years, the system will remainunder-funded for years to come.

However the proportion of the governmentbudget spent on education has fluctuatedaround 15%, and in 2004 was 15.03%,which cannot be considered low (ADB,2006). Nevertheless, the actual budgetavailable for education is low, and remainsa constraint for implementing reform at alllevels of education.

As Table 7 shows, in 2001 around 85%and in 2004 around 75% of the governmentbudget for VET was used for salaries andsocial contributions, and for student meals.Salaries in education, however, are verylow. President Rakhmonov signed adecree on 4 November 2004 raising theminimum wage and salaries of governmentemployees with effect from 1 January2005. The decree provides for workers in

science, health care and social services toreceive a salary increase of 100%,preschool and elementary school teachersan increase of 70%, other teachers anincrease of 60%, and other stateemployees in the educational and culturalspheres an increase of 50%. Theminimum-wage unit, which is also used tocalculate pensions, will increase fromTJS 7 (USD 2.50) to TJS 12 (USD 4.30)per month with effect from 2005.

It is evident that the size of the publicbudget and the current budget structureare insufficient to cover the acquisition andinnovation needs of VET in terms ofequipment, teaching and learning material,and staff development of teachers andtrainers67.

Approximately 17% of the total budget forVET in 2004 came from self-financing byschools. This income derives primarily fromsales of school-based production anddelivery of other services. Around 60% ofthe income generated by schools wasspent on salaries and related socialcontributions, and on manufacturing costs,fuel and lubricants. Schools are required totransfer 15% of their income to the MoLSP.

2.3 HERITAGE FROM THEPAST

The inherited system of VET in Tajikistanas described above was part of amanpower planning system designed for acentrally planned economy in a societybased on socialist principles. Its mainfeatures stem from the period of extensiveindustrialisation in the Soviet Union duringthe 1950s, during which large state-ownedmass industrial and agricultural companieswere in need of large numbers ofsemi-skilled workers and mid-leveltechnicians in order to be able to fulfilproduction targets set by the centralplanning authorities. The VET system thatdeveloped in this context was functional forthe manpower planning system of the time.Young people were trained in vocational(workers) and technical (technicians)schools directly attached to the companies(base companies) in which they were to be

36


67 Nor, in fact, is the TJS 0.16 available per meal per student enough to provide a decent meal.

employed. Once employed, they receivedfurther training on the job, sometimes incombination with short courses. A certainnumber were also given the opportunity,with the support of the base companies, tocontinue studies in higher education. Thenumbers of students per specialisationwere calculated on the basis of planningfigures from the companies that were goingto employ them.

Manpower planning, which determinededucational and occupational choices,ensured jobs for school graduates.However, neither the school nor the job wasnecessarily the one to which the youngpeople aspired. Although job mobility wasnot encouraged, during the growth periodsof the 1950s and 1970s the economic andpolitical system provided graduates of basicvocational schools with ample opportunitiesto build careers. Vocational schools cateredfor the majority of primary school leavers.The largest proportion of each cohortentered vocational schools, and access tohigher education – despite increasingeducational aspirations – was limited, andfor the majority of secondary schoolgraduates basically consisted of teachingand medical colleges.

As in all other former Communist countries,the situation began to change during theearly 1980s. Career opportunities graduallybecame blocked because higher-levelpositions were already occupied by earliergraduates and no new ones were created.Technological and organisational changesincreasingly required a different workforcecomposition, and there was less need forunskilled and semi-skilled workers. Basicvocational schools gradually becamedead-end streets and lost their appeal asan educational pathway for potentialstudents. Increasing budget problems ledto a hiatus in further extensive growth, andinsufficient resources were available forinvestment in technology-driven intensivegrowth. The Soviet economic system as awhole entered a vicious cycle in which anumber of different developments mutuallyreinforced one another towards a finalcollapse. Companies were unable to keepup with technological innovations; clientmarkets were no longer ready to acceptlow-quality products and services; andbudgetary problems further intensified theslow-down and put a stop to investments,not only in production companies but alsoin schools and other public institutions.Shortages of daily goods and basic

37


Table 6: National budget for education in 1991, 1996 and 2002 as a share of GDP

1991 1996 2002

National budget for education as a share ofGDP (%)

9.0 2.1 2.6

National budget for vocational education as ashare of GDP (%)

1.3 0.04 0.09


Table 7: The proportion of total government expenditure on VET spent on main

budget items in 2001 and 2004*

Budget item 2001 2004

Salaries 40.3 40.1

Social contributions 9.3 10.1

Maintenance of buildings 6.8 7.0

Meals for students 35.0 23.6

Electricity, gas and water 1.5 8.2

Purchase of equipment 2.3 7.7

Others 4.8 3.3

*planned budget


services became a reality of life. The crisisin VET in all transition countries, includingTajikistan, has a wider context and a longerhistory. It did not suddenly occur at thebeginning of transition; it has not been aneffect of independence; nor is it causedonly by insufficient funding. But all thesefactors have played a role in it.

The centralised manpower planningsystem encouraged companies tomaximise their needs for labour, as oneway of creating production reserves underconditions of overall scarcity of resources.‘Soft’ budgets made mutual alliancesbetween companies and basic VETschools beneficial and easy to maintain.Indeed, companies and schools normallybelonged to the same industrial sectorministry apparatus: hence, industry,construction, transport and agriculture allhad their own VET subsystems. Companyand school directors would form a stronglobby at local and ministerial level todefend their common interests. Hoarding oflabour made labour itself a scarceresource; this further encouragedcompanies to persuade workers to remainin their employment, which contributed tocompanies becoming highly inefficient interms of overall production costs68. Withthe introduction of ‘hard’ budgets towardsthe end of the 1980s, and subsequentlyduring the 1990s following privatisation,companies were quick to shed theirovercapacities and abandon allexpenditure that was not directlyproduction-related, with a view to bringingoverall production costs down. Vocationalschools, company-based training centresand other training facilities were among thefirst to be closed or abandoned69.

VET served enterprises who themselveswere fully integrated into the overall Sovieteconomy. Companies received theirproduction plans from central planningauthorities. The large companies inTajikistan were in fact all established at the

initiative of – and mostly with the financialsupport of – the central authorities inMoscow, and were not necessarilyestablished to develop and maintain astrong national Tajik economy. They werepart of an all-Soviet system of division oflabour and were integrated into complexcompany structures that transcendedrepublican borders. Although in themeantime most, if not all, large enterpriseshave collapsed, the structure of VET inTajikistan continues to perpetuate many ofthe features of the past employmentsystem. It has become totally irrelevant toemerging labour market needs. Moreover,it no longer responds to the education andtraining needs of young people and adults.

The VET system previously receivedguidelines and directions from Moscow,including descriptions of the kinds ofoccupational profile to be included in VET(profiles that were themselves based onjob profiles as created by the particularforms of work organisation in statecompanies), detailed curricula, teachingplans, textbooks, and workshop andclassroom equipment. The current situationis aggravated by the fact that mostcurricula and learning materials invocational schools stem from the early ormid 1980s. These are now hopelesslyoutdated in pedagogical and technologicalterms, while the country’s capacity –financially and professionally – tomodernise VET programmes is stillseverely limited, in part because in the pastthere was no requirement to do this type ofdevelopment work.

While the problems in vocational schoolsbegan decades ago, the collapse of thecentral planning system and the suddenintroduction of market mechanisms addedother dimensions to the crisis in VET.During the transition period governmentalresponsibilities for education and trainingwere reorganised. The MoE becameresponsible for primary, secondary general,

38


68 Companies did this not so much by offering higher wages, as the wage system was highly centralised, butrather by providing a whole range of other benefits, ranging from housing to scholarships and holidayresorts.

69 But it was not only the VET system that was sector or company-based. The whole social and welfare systemwas built around companies and – for the individual – based on work in an enterprise: this included housing,childcare, education, health, recreation and pensions. All this collapsed with the breakdown of the overalleconomic system.

technical and higher education70. TheMoLSP became responsible for the basicvocational school system, without, ofcourse, having available the VET budgetsthat had been at the disposal of thesectoral ministries in the earlier years.

2.4 THE DECLINE OFVOCATIONAL SCHOOLS

Vocational schools have sufferedparticularly badly as a result of recentdevelopments. They already had low statusduring the 1980s, but have since declinedfurther in a downward spiral from whichthey are unlikely to be able to recoverunder their own steam71. They have losttheir guaranteed training and employmentpartnership with large state-ownedcompanies. They also lost their financialsponsors when they became detachedfrom their base companies. While there isconsiderable regional variation (dependingon the destruction caused by the civil war),most vocational schools have veryimpoverished material resources, withobsolete teaching materials and poorlyequipped workshops. Where workshopshave equipment, it is hopelessly old andworn out; some have no equipment at all.Many school buildings need considerablerefurbishment, including improvements insanitary and heating conditions. Resourcesfor modernisation and reconstruction arenot available within the country, and theinternational donor community has so fargiven little attention to the problems of theVET system72.

Vocational schools in Tajikistan havebecome dissociated from mainstreameducation and training (includingsecondary technical and higher education).This situation has been furtherinstitutionalised by the fact that in 1996 theMoLSP was given responsibility for theseschools. However, vocational schools havealso become dissociated from the labourmarket, as they are still preparing students

for the same limited number of semi-skilledoccupations that were once sought bylarge industrial and agricultural companies,but that have now largely disappeared. Sofar, vocational schools have shown limitedor no capacity to adapt to changing labourmarket conditions, which are characterisednot only by the disappearance of massemployment in large industrial andagricultural enterprises, but also by thegradual emergence of an informalsubsistence-based economy of smallprivate farms and trading businesses. Nor,for that matter, do vocational schoolsproperly prepare the large numbers ofworkers who migrate to other countries insearch of employment. There are signsthat companies who are in need ofqualified workers, especially firms withforeign capital involvement, already bypassthe public VET system and look for internalqualification solutions73. They hiregraduates from higher levels of educationfor jobs normally available for vocationalschool graduates and give them in-housetraining, either on the job or through shortcourses.

With access to secondary general andhigher education increasingly becomingdependent on the ability to afford formal –and, increasingly, informal – payments,lower levels of education, in particularvocational schools, have become a refugefor students who cannot afford to goelsewhere. This development has furtherdecreased the status of these schools.

By increasingly catering for students frompoor families who cannot afford alternativeeducation paths, vocational schools arenow widely seen as being involved withsocial protection rather than withprofessional preparation. As aconsequence, large numbers of youngpeople and adults currently remainexcluded from any opportunity to continueor improve their level of education andlabour market position. As elsewhere,those with lower levels of education and

39


70 In other countries different decisions were taken. In the Russian Federation for example, at least until 2004,the MoE was responsible for basic vocational schools.

71 All over the Soviet Union, in fact, being called a ‘PTUtjik’ was not a compliment, and gradually became seenas the equivalent of belonging to the lower classes.

72 See Godfrey (2002).

73 Interview with the director of a textile vocational school in Khujand in April 2004.

training in particular become the mostvulnerable victims of this process. Byneglecting their qualification function,vocational schools run the risk ofperpetuating poverty among the socialgroups from which they now largely recruittheir students. At the same time, at themoment there are no other institutions ableto take over the – albeit limited – welfarefunctions that vocational schools currentlyperform74. Closing down basic vocationalschools will therefore not contribute to anyreduction of poverty. Instead, basicvocational schools should improve anddevelop their qualification role.

2.5 POTENTIAL SCOPE OF VET

As recently as 2003, around 100,000young people entered the labour marketfollowing completion of 9 or 11 grades ofschooling without any occupationalqualification. These numbers are predictedto increase even further in the near future.Employment services have the capacity totrain or retrain only 5,000 unemployedpeople per year. Annual cohorts enteringvocational schools currently numberaround 25,000 (down from over 40,000several years ago and expected todecrease further in the short run), while afurther 25,000 students enter secondarytechnical schools (also down from 40,000several years ago though increasingagain). Both types of school put around15,000 graduates in the labour marketeach year. Higher education institutionseducate around 10,000 specialistsannually. Estimates from the employmentservices indicate that around 50% of alluniversity graduates will not find a job75.Furthermore, there are around 600,000labour migrants from Tajikistan, most ofwhom work in one of the other countries ofthe former Soviet Union. Some 57% ofthese migrant workers are withoutprofessional qualifications, leaving them totake unskilled and poorly paid jobs withhazardous working conditions.Remittances of labour migrants, however,

constitute one of the most importantsources of income in the country, andgovernment policy is based on theassumption that labour migration willcontinue for some time to come.

It is clear, therefore, that the VET systempotentially caters for considerable numbersof young people and adults. Potential VETstudents, young people and adults, havebecome increasingly heterogeneous, andthe current system has proved unable torespond flexibly to this growing diversity.Instead, vocational schools have continuedto provide standardised programmes andhave gradually limited themselves toproviding VET for students who are unableto enter other forms of education, and indoing so have further decreased their ownappeal for students interested in acquiringqualifications relevant for the labour marketor for further education.

2.6 RECENT DEVELOPMENTSAND MAIN POLICYCHALLENGES

It has been generally understood inTajikistan that VET no longer meets therequired standards. The first attempt toadapt the VET system was made with theadoption of a National Standard forVocational Education in 2002. This wasfollowed by the Law on Basic VocationalEducation in 2003. But these documentswere mainly intended to fill a regulatory andlegislative gap, in a situation in which Tajikeducation had to be reorganised as anational system, and did not reallyintroduce fundamental changes76. Furtherimpetus for reform has come directly fromthe President’s Executive Administrationand from the President himself, whoconsiders VET an important tool for povertyalleviation. The Minister of Labour andSocial Protection was asked to take furthersteps to reform the system. In early 2004,the minister established a special workinggroup consisting of representatives of keyministries, public agencies and social

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74 The welfare function basically consists of providing one free meal per day to students. Each meal has thevalue of TJS 0.16. It could be argued that keeping vocational schools operational, including employingteaching and training staff, forms part of social policy rather than education and training policy.

75 Kodusov (2003). For an analysis of the employment situation see the following chapter.

76 For a review of these documents see the following chapter.

partners to prepare a concept for a futureVET system. In August 2004, the ministersubmitted a draft concept to thegovernment for approval; the governmentapproved the concept in October 2004, andthe MoLSP was given the responsibility ofdeveloping a strategy for itsimplementation77.

In parallel with these developments atnational level, Tajikistan has alsodeveloped, with the assistance of theinternational donor community, a numberof practical measures. The first of thesewas to establish facilities for short-termflexible retraining of adults. Employmentoffices provide short courses for youngadults who have left (primary or secondary)school without a recognised qualification.

These short courses of up to six monthsmostly lead to the same qualifications thatare provided by vocational schools, andeffectively undermine the latter’s reputationamong both prospective students andcompanies. Another measure was theestablishment of a modular training centreto cater especially for former combatantsfrom the civil war and to provide them withbasic skills to facilitate their reintegrationinto society78.

Following on from the actions undertakenso far, Tajik policymakers are facing thechallenge of devising short-term solutions

to transform a technologically andpedagogically outdated VET infrastructurein order that it can better respond to newneeds for knowledge and skills. They mustalso decide on the main policy objectivesthat they wish to achieve with the VETsystem in the medium to long-term. Thiswill imply a rebalancing of the welfare andqualification objectives of the VET systemand make VET an integrated part of acoherent overall lifelong learning system.Policymakers must also define, identify andmobilise the resources and capacitiesnecessary to ensure that their policyobjectives are realised. Moreover, they willhave to involve other stakeholders in thesediscussions, and to create efficientplatforms and mechanisms to do so, atnational, regional and local level.

In 2004, policymakers in the MoLSPbecame seriously concerned aboutchanging the existing VET system. Theyinitiated consultations and involved otherstakeholders, such as other ministries,government offices and social partners.Within the framework of the PovertyReduction Strategy they have also raisedthe issue of VET reform becoming one ofthe national priorities, and have started tomobilise resources to support and financechange. These processes have only justbegun, and the task of transforming theheritage of the past remains a formidableone.

41


77 During the period February – July 2004, staff of the ETF assisted the working group in ensuring an informeddebate on the key issues at stake for the preparation of the concept. Continued support for the elaboration ofan implementation strategy was provided to the MoLSP through the Tacis programme that ran fromSeptember 2004 – August 2006.

78 The first centre was set up with UNDP funding, and introduced the ILO Modules for Employable Skills (MES)approach. A second affiliate centre was set up in the Garm region. The project has been dependent onexternal funding and the centres are facing survival problems. Discussions are ongoing regardingtransforming the modular centre into a national resource centre for students, teachers and trainers ofvocational schools.

3. THE SOCIOECONOMIC

ENVIRONMENT FOR VET

REFORM

3.1 INTRODUCTION

The direction and feasibility of any reformof VET are linked closely to the overallperformance of the economy, the availabilityof public and private resources, the expecteddevelopment of employment and thestructure of the labour market. This sectionwill look briefly at each of these areas.

The collapse of the Soviet economy andthe civil conflict that followed haddevastating effects on all economic activityin Tajikistan. The large state-ownedcompanies in industry and agriculture thatused to employ the vast majority of therepublic’s labour force ceased to exist.Many companies were destroyed or werenot operational during the years of civilconflict. The private sector has developedonly slowly, and has not yet been able tomake up for the employment losses left bythe former state companies. These

developments resulted in hitherto unknownhigh levels of unemployment, a growinginformal subsistence-based economy,widespread poverty, and considerableinternal and external labour migration.Furthermore, as a result of decreasinggovernment spending, the education,welfare and health care servicesdeteriorated rapidly. Though recent yearshave seen a reversal of these trends,which may be a sign for cautious optimismfor the future, Tajikistan still ranks as oneof the poorest countries in the world.

3.2 ECONOMICDEVELOPMENTS79

The main government strategy forpromoting economic growth and reducingpoverty is spelled out in the NationalPoverty Reduction Strategy80. As part ofthe agreement with the international

43

3

79 The information in this section is based on ‘Asian Development Outlook 2004, Economic Trends andProspects in Developing Asia, Central Asia’, by the Asian Development Bank (Key Indicators on the AsianDevelopment Bank’s website for Tajikistan, 10 August 2004: www.adb.org); and ‘Tajikistan Country Brief,Tajikistan Data Profile, Tajikistan at a glance, and Gender Stats Tajikistan’ (World Bank website, 10 August2004: www.worldbank.org).

80 Government of the Republic of Tajikistan, Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper, Dushanbe, 2002.

financial institutions, the government ispursuing a policy aimed at stabilisingmacroeconomic developments, and hasbeen relatively successful in doing so.Some key developments will be describedin this section, and an assessment of theirrelevance for VET policies follows.

Macroeconomic trends

Since 1998, Tajikistan has experiencedcontinuous high growth rates in GDP,ranging from 5.3% in 1998 to 10.2% in2003. Though lower, the forecasts for 2004and 2005 remained high, at 8.0% and 5.0%respectively. Nevertheless, it should beremembered that GDP in 1996 was only32.6% of GDP in 1991, and in 2003 was stillonly around half the size of the 1991 figure.

The government was able to maintain analmost balanced budget in 2001 and 2002at –0.1% of GDP, and managed a surplusof 0.9% of GDP in 2003, though it has notquite been able to curb the inflation rate,which was 16.4% in 2003. However,inflationary processes are not completelyunder the government’s control, sincemany basic subsistence goods needed byhouseholds have to be imported and aresubject to cost changes resulting frompolicies in neighbouring countries and fromunreliable transport infrastructures81.

Foreign trade in 2003 increased substantially,with a 14.2% increase in exports and a23.2% increase in imports. The economystill relies heavily on cotton and aluminium,which together make up around 75% oftotal exports. Many basic consumer goods,including meat, still have to be imported.

The current account deficit has beenreduced to 1.3% of GDP, compared to2.7% in 2002. This has been mainly as aresult of the growing importance ofremittances from migrant workers, whichrose from an estimated USD 65 million in2002 to USD 202 million in 2003, theequivalent of around 13% of GDP.

Despite constraints caused bymacroeconomic stabilisation policies, the

government, in line with the priorities set bythe PRSP, increased budget allocations forthe social sector – including education – in2004, and in doing so has demonstrated awillingness to address some of the negativesocial consequences of transition.Supported by enhanced tax collection, it haseven been possible to strengthen publicadministration by increasing civil servicewages by 20% in 2003 and by a further 25%in January 2004, while at the same timeinitiating a heavily debated reduction of staffto streamline the civil service82.

Structure of the economy

Since the mid 1990s the relativeimportance of the main economic sectorshas changed, and continues to do so. Froma share of 45.3% of GDP in 1992, industrynow contributes less than 20% of GDP.This decline can largely be attributed todevelopments in manufacturing. During thesame period the share of GDP contributedby the service sector increased from 27.6%to over 42%.

The rapid growth in services, and especiallyin trade, has been followed by expansion innon-cotton agriculture and non-aluminiummanufacturing sectors. This trend isexpected to continue over the years to come.

In agriculture, cotton remains by far themost important crop. Other important cropsare: grain, sweet corn, feed corn, rice,potatoes, vegetables, fruits, grapes andhay. Animal husbandry is concentrated onbeef cattle, milk cows, sheep, goats andhorses. However, Tajikistan still has toimport considerable amounts of meat fromoutside the country.

State farms concentrate to a large extent oncotton: in terms of value, 96% of production instate farms derived from cotton crops in 2000.In contrast, for private farms the importance ofanimal husbandry was significant, at around25%83 of production value.

In industry, aluminium processing made up47.2% of total industrial production in2004). Other major industrial sub-sectors

44


81 Kurbanov (2004).

82 Further increases in teaching salaries were announced at the beginning of 2005.

83 IMF Country Report No. 01/69, May 2001.

are (hydro-) electric energy at 6.0%, lightindustry at 17.8%, food processing at15.0% and flour grinding at 8.7%. Withinlight industry the most important branch istextiles. Attempts are being made torevitalise textiles and other light industryfurther. However, most manufacturingequipment is outdated and there is ashortage of skilled workers and mid-leveltechnicians, positions left vacant by thosewho left the country for good during the1990s.

Privatisation of most of the 8,200government-owned SMEs put up for salewas completed by the end of 2004, thoughin many cases the acquired assets havebeen sold off and operations have ceased.Privatisation has therefore led to the loss ofproduction capacity and employment. Incontrast, privatisation of large enterprisesis slow. In a strategic plan for theprivatisation of medium and largeenterprises for the period 2003–07, over500 joint stock companies and enterpriseswill be put up for sale. Hotels andrestaurants are already mainly in privatehands, but most companies in construction,transport, communication and agricultureremain government-owned. In agriculturethere are still a significant number of largestate-owned cotton farms. Therestructuring of these farms has been slowbecause of their high level of debt, which in2002 was higher than actual cotton

exports. Other enterprises too have highdebt burdens and require considerableinvestment.

Though economic recovery has beenunderway since 1998, the internationalfinancial institutions argue that a number ofconstraints may still hinder continued andsustainable economic progress. While thehigh growth rates and the government’scommitment to increased finance for thesocial sectors are promising, the high debtburden may not only prevent investmentbased on foreign loans and credits, butalso damage the recovery achieved so far.Exports remain highly dependent on cottonand aluminium (75%), and thus sensitive tochanges in international price fluctuations.The high price of aluminium on the worldmarket has contributed substantially to theGDP growth of recent years. Sustainingand expanding economic performance alsodepends on the capacity of the statestructures. These are notoriously low, withsevere governance problems and a weakpublic administration. Continued privatesector development will partly depend onthe capacity of the public administration toeliminate corruption and red tape, and toprovide a climate conducive to encouragingprivate sector investment at all levels –from microbusiness financing to therevival of large industrial enterprises – aswell as to attract direct foreigninvestment84.

45

3. THE SOCIOECONOMIC ENVIRONMENT FOR VET REFORM

Table 8: The share of GDP by economic sector 1995, 1998, 2001 and 2004

1992 1995 1998 2001 2004

Agriculture 27.1 36.7 25.1 26.5 21.6

Industry 45.3 34.0 20.1 22.7 19.6

Construction * 3.2 3.8 4.1 5.5

Trade ** 7.5 22.1 19.1 19.7

Transport andcommunications

** 4.5 4.2 3.9 5.5

Other services 27.6 9.6 17.1 14.6 17.4

* Included in Industry. ** Included in Other services

Source: Annual Handbook Tajikistan, 2005

84 According to the IMF, a number of factors constrain a more rapid development of the private productionsectors. These include relatively high taxes, red tape in providing financing, low levels of domesticinvestment, a lack of capacity for attracting foreign investment, and barriers to regional trade. In addition,there is a high perceived risk of corruption which corrodes interest in doing business. IMF Country ReportNo. 01/69, May 2001

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Challenges for VET reform

In terms of VET reform, the macro andsector-specific developments present acomplex set of challenges. Macroeconomicstabilisation policies have not led to anincrease of private sector initiatives in theformal sector, despite privatisation. Thereis a growing awareness that institutionalchanges are also needed. Yet outsideagriculture there have been no clearindications of skills development needs.This may suggest that many existingenterprises can currently manage with theskills of the workforce that they retainedafter restructuring, or that there is asufficiently educated supply in the labourmarket to enable them to cover their skillneeds. In the latter case, as in other placeswhere high levels of unemployment exist,this will be reflected in a situation wherehigher educated individuals take jobs whichwould previously have been filled bypeople with lower levels of education. Therelative worsening of the labour marketsituation of vocational school graduates isthe result of such processes. The increasein the number of private farmers and thediversification away from cotton implies thatVET in this sector can no longer continueto focus on jobs within the old-style statefarms. It must adapt what it offers to newtypes of farming entailing a need forbroader sets of skills and knowledge85.

Furthermore, although relativelysuccessful, macroeconomic stabilisationhas not provided the government withsufficient budget capacities to investseriously in a reform of the wholeeducation sector. Even with a focus mainlyon primary and general education, themajority of funds to finance investmentsand reforms have come from loans fromthe international financial organisations.The incentive for doing this has probablycome largely from outside as part of thestructural adjustment and – later – thePoverty Reduction Strategy negotiations.Thus it must also be assumed thatinvestments needed for the reform of VETwill not – at least in the short and

medium-term – be financed from thegovernment budget. As mentioned above,the current assistance framework of thePRSP does not foresee much attentionbeing given to VET.

However, when looking at the issues interms of what is happening inside theemployment system, the need for publicintervention in the present VET system isquite clear. Shifts in the relative importanceof economic sectors, despite the absenceof reliable information on the labour marketimplications of these changes, signalconsiderable needs for retraining andfurther training of adults. Shifts in thestructure of individual sectors, such astrade and agriculture, imply changes inemployment structures and skill needs.They also point to a need to reorient thecurrent structure and content of VETtowards young people. Moreover, althoughthe Poverty Reduction Strategy includesthe development of new sectors (such asenergy and tourism), it is questionable howthis can be done without giving anyattention to the human resources that willbe needed. Equally important, thoughhitherto largely neglected, except from animmediate poverty reduction point of view,are the human resource challenges posedby rural development needs arising fromthe collapse and privatisation of the largestate farms and industrial enterprises inrural areas.

3.3 DEMOGRAPHICDEVELOPMENTS86

For any education system the age structureof the population sets quantitativeparameters for planning and policymaking.

Despite the considerable migration ofnon-Tajik citizens during the first half of the1990s, the total population in Tajikistanincreased from 5.3 million in 1990 to6.7 million in 2004. Although the annualgrowth in population has decreased from2.9% in 1985 and 2.3% in 1990, it remainshigh, and stood at 2.1% in 200287.

85 The Tacis project Support for the Establishment of a Structure to provide Information, Training and Advice toFarmers and other Rural Businesses in the Khatlon Region of Tajikistan addresses this issue.

86 Asian Development Bank, Key Indicators, Tajikistan website, 10 August 2004 (www.adb.org).

87 During the period 1991–95, around 285,000 people emigrated from Tajikistan, many of whom weremanagers, professionals and intellectuals of non-Tajik origin.

Although the share of the total populationunder the age of 15 fell from 43.2% in 1998to 38.9% in 2004, the population is stillcharacterised by a large proportion ofyoung people. In the same years theshares of the population of working age(16–63 years) were 50.4% and 57.0%,respectively. This age structure willmaintain a strong pressure on the need tocreate employment and on havingsufficient capacities in the education andtraining system. In total there are around120,000 new entrants to the labour marketevery year.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union andthe rapid disintegration of the basic socialfunctions of the state, poverty has becomean almost all-encompassing fact of life inTajikistan. The civil war and increasedpoverty have triggered the rise of anotherphenomenon, that of labour migration toCIS countries, and especially to Russiaand Kazakhstan88. According to theInternational Organisation for Migration, in2002 around 927,000 adults over 15 yearsof age in Tajikistan lived in households inwhich the main income was derived fromremittances89. A survey conducted in early2003 showed that over a quarter of allhouseholds had at least one familymember working abroad. Around 18% ofthe adult population, equivalent to 632,000people, had left the country to work abroadduring the period 2000-03 most of them forseasonal work; around 84%90 of migrantworkers had worked in Russia.

The majority of Tajik migrants in Russiawork in the construction, oil and gasindustries, motor vehicle and machinerymanufacturing, the sale of fruit andvegetables, catering, agriculture, shuttletrade and small-scale trade and markets91.Around 85% of migrant workers are male.The majority (57%) of migrant workersdefine themselves as not having aprofession or skills92. The two largest

groups of migrant workers are those up to29 years of age and those aged 40 or over.The former is the largest group, andtypically consists of people with 9–11thgrade general education and noqualifications, whereas over a quarter ofthe latter group are qualified workers andspecialists. Around 14.5% of migrantworkers gained their first work experienceabroad93. More than 40% of Tajik migrantsin former Soviet Union countries come fromthe region of Khatlon94.

The education system must be capable ofabsorbing an increasing number of youngpeople at all levels of post-compulsoryeducation, while at the same timedeveloping higher-quality and morerelevant educational offers for youngpeople. The demographic developmentwill, in the years to come, require thelabour market to create around 120,000jobs for new entrants alone. The questionwill be at what level of education theseyoung people will leave the educationsystem, and what kinds of job will beavailable to them. The government’scurrent education and employment policieswill have their own impact here. In terms ofeducation, this impact will be dependent onthe educational strategies that aredeveloped.

For example, will the government choosean education policy that produces abalanced supply of qualifications atdifferent levels? Or will the policy begoverned by attempts to keep as manyyoung people away from the labour marketfor as long as possible, by expandinghigher education?

The first wave of migration in the early1990s saw the departure of 70–80% of theadult skilled workforce outside agriculture.While this migration has keptunemployment levels down, it has alsodeprived the country of the most productive

47


88 All statistics on migration are from the International Organisation for Migration, Labour migration from

Tajikistan, July 2003.

89 Idem, p.20.

90 Idem, p.23.

91 Idem, pp.30–31.

92 Idem, p.29.

93 Idem, p.15.

94 Idem.

part of its population. This situation hascreated the major challenge of building upa qualified workforce for the industry andservice sectors. Since the end of the 1990smigration has also provided an outlet formany Tajiks who have good levels ofeducation and have found themselvesunemployed. Again, this has easedunemployment figures, but it has deprivedthe country of additional numbers ofpotentially productive workers. It isquestionable whether the country cancontinue to rely in the long-term on accessto the Russian labour market in particular.Moreover, migrant workers will also needappropriate qualifications, especiallyqualifications that are recognised byenterprises and labour markets abroad.Given that most migrant workers findemployment far below their ownqualification levels, there will be atremendous need for requalification whenthey return.

3.4 LABOUR MARKETDEVELOPMENTS

During the transition period the labourmarket in Tajikistan has faced difficultchallenges, with mass lay-offs fromstate-owned companies, a lack of capacityin the formal private sector to absorb theincreasing population into employment, anexodus of skilled workers andprofessionals of Russian and Germanorigin, and massive seasonal migration,especially to Russia and Kazakhstan. Inparallel, an informal sector has developed,mainly in the form of subsistence farmingand trading that will soon face thechallenge of developing growth andsustainability. These developments alsopresent mixed signals for VET.

However, it is not easy to develop a clearpicture of the labour market situation inTajikistan. There is no regularcomprehensive collection of labour marketdata95. No surveys are currently undertakenthat could inform on the future demand ofthe labour market at national level in termsof occupations and specialities. Likewisethere is a lack of data on the informal sector,in terms of both quantitative and qualitativeinformation96. As a result of migration, thedevelopment of a large informal sector, thecollapse of industrial companies and thenon-functioning of the employment services,it is very difficult to assess labour marketdevelopments and to have a clear picture,based on statistics, of the currentcontribution of VET to employment. Atextbook labour market, which allocatesresources based on price and quality,simply does not exist.

During the period 1991–2004, while thetotal population increased by 23.0%, from5.51 million to 6.77 million, the working agepopulation increased by 49.8%, from2.58 million to 3.86 million.

In contrast, the number of employedpeople decreased every year until 1996,and although it has since increased, in2004 it was still below the 1991 level.Table 9 shows that the labour forceparticipation rate decreased from around77% in 1991 to around 51% in 2004.

Table 10 shows that in the periodcharacterised by strong economic growthrates, the increase in the size of the totalpopulation of working age was still higherevery year (apart from 2001) than theincrease in the number of peopleemployed. The labour market is not able tofollow the demographic changes.

48


95 Although in 2002 the MoLSP carried out a survey according to the ILO methodology of Labour MarketSurveys to establish real unemployment, this has not been done regularly, and it is questionable whether thesurvey was able to establish realistic unemployment figures. No tracer studies are carried out to understandhow VET graduates perform on the labour market after graduation, nor are studies available to assess howgraduates from other types of education fare on the labour market.

96 A number of other surveys related to the labour market have been carried out. These include the povertyassessments in 1999 and 2004, and, for example, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) study,‘Labour Migration from Tajikistan’. However, these do not adequately make up for the lack of comprehensivelabour market information at national level, nor do they inform on future priorities in terms of occupations andskill requirements.

The nature of employment has alsochanged dramatically since 1991. Thestate is no longer the main employer, buthas been replaced by the private sector.Interestingly enough, collective forms ofenterprise have also increased, especiallyin agriculture.

Table 11: Public, private and collective

employment according to ownership for

1991, 1998 and 2002 (%)

1991 1998 2002

Public 59.7 42.7 27.8

Private 19.0 33.1 44.0

Collective 21.2 23.2 27.5

Source: Department of Labour, Ministry of Labour and

Social Protection, Tajikistan, 2004

49


Table 9: Key labour market indicators in Tajikistan for 1991 and 1998–2004

(in thousands)97

Indicators 1991 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004**

Total population 5,505.6 6,001.3 6,126.7 6,250.0 6,375.5 6,506.0 6,640.0 6,772.0

Populationyounger thanworking age

2,509.9 2,595.2 2,616.2 2,611.3 2,601.1 2,589.7 2,585.0 2,634.0

Population ofworking age*

2,577.5 3,024.8 3,126.7 3,246.7 3,397.0 3,573.3 3,739.6 3,860.0

Population olderthan workingage

418.2 381.3 383.6 392.0 377.4 343.0 315.4 278.0

Labour force 1,971.0 1,855.0 1,791.0 1,794.0 1,872.0 1,904.0 1,928.0 1,978.0

Employedpopulation

1,971.0 1,796.0 1,737.0 1,745.0 1,829.0 1,857.0 1,885.0 1,939.2

Registeredunemployed

*** 54.1 49.7 43.2 43.0 46.7 43.0 38.8

Economicallynon-activepopulation

5,55.0 1,183.0 1,334.0 1,392.0 1,429.0 1,573.0 1,712.0 1,786.0

*According to 1998 legislation the working age is 15-63 years.

**Preliminary figures.

*** Figure not available

Source: Department of Labour, Ministry of Labour and Social Protection, Tajikistan, May 2005

Table 10: Year-on-year changes in key labour market indicators, 1998–2004 (%)

1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004

Population 2.13 2.09 2.01 2.01 2.05 2.06 1.99

Population ofworking age

4.43 2.86 1.95 3.61 5.33 4.65 3.22

Labour force 0.71 -3.45 0.17 4.35 1.71 1.26 2.59

Employed 0.28 -3.29 0.46 4.81 1.53 1.51 2.88

Source: Department of Labour, Ministry of Labour and Social Protection, Tajikistan, May 2005

97 The numbers in the table do not add up completely and are indicative of the situation only.

The importance of different sectors hasalso changed. The greatest falls inemployment took place in the constructionand manufacturing industries. Agriculture,however, remains by far the dominantemployment sector. In 2000 around 65% ofall employment was in agriculture, 7.5% inindustry, 10.7% in education, culture andart, and 4.5% in health and social care.Trade only made up 1.8% of total officialemployment98, but can be expected tomake up a much larger proportion ofeconomic activity when the informal sectoris included.

Another changing feature of employment isthat much of it is created in small andmicro-businesses and throughself-employment99. According to theemployment services, employment in smalland micro-businesses is usually obtainedthrough family or other contacts. At thesame time, vacancies posted through theemployment services are typically those inmore traditional jobs, and require low skillsfor low pay.

Most new employment has been created inthe agriculture and trade sectors. Both aresectors that have seen a rapid expansionof informal sector activities with lowproductivity. New jobs in agriculture inparticular are typically related tosubsistence farming activities, a point alsoindicated by the fact that the increase inemployment has occurred in a period whenagriculture has seen a reduction in itsoverall importance in the economy. Trade,too, is strongly dominated by the informalsector, and a great deal of employmentstems from work in markets or similaractivities.

Registered unemployment remains low inTajikistan, increasing from the level of anunknown phenomenon at independence toover 54,000 people (2.9%) in 1998100.Since then registered unemployment hasfallen somewhat, and in 2004 was only38,800 (2.0%). Given the lack of incentivesto register (low compensation levels, andthe unattractiveness of the limited number

of vacancies, training opportunities andother initiatives offered through theemployment services) combined with strictrules for being accepted as unemployed,this level does not even remotely reflectreality. The 2002 Labour Force Surveyarrived at a figure of over 200,000unemployed (11.3%). Moreover, massivelevels of migration have also resulted indecreasing unemployment figures.

Of those registered unemployed in 2002,55% were women, 62.6% were in the agegroup 15–29 years, and 69.8% were fromthe rural population101.

The labour market in Tajikistan is a difficultcontext for VET reform. Despite economicgrowth since 1998, the labour market hasbeen unable to absorb the existing labourforce, let alone create new employment forthe young people entering the labourmarket for the first time, and who increasethe labour force by around 120,000 everyyear. The informal sector and migrationcurrently absorb large numbers of thesurplus labour force and help to maintainsocial stability. The nature of employmenthas also changed dramatically. The formerlarge state-owned enterprises, whichrequired sets of fixed skills, have given wayto large numbers of small and mediumprivate sector companies, mainly in theinformal sector. Consequently, the types ofknowledge, skills and attitudes required areno longer the same, and this requireschanges in VET programmes. Precise dataand information on these developments,however, are not available.

For a reform of the VET system, it will beparticularly important to know exactly howthe qualification structure of the nationalworkforce has changed as a result ofmigration. It was always the case that ahigh proportion of managerial, technicaland skilled jobs were occupied by‘Europeans’, chiefly Russians, Ukrainiansand Germans, while the Tajik populationwas supposedly spread over a widespectrum of unskilled and semi-skilled jobsin agriculture, industry and services.

50


98 IMF Country Report No. 01/69, May 2001.

99 Kodusov (2004).

100 Department of Labour, Ministry of Labour and Social Protection, May 2005.

101 Department of Labour, Ministry of Labour and Social Protection, May 2005

However, the real picture may have beenmore complex, and there are probablyconsiderable differences between urbanand rural populations in terms of traditions,lack of Russian language skills and accessto educational facilities. There are alsoobvious differences between the publicadministration, health and educationsectors on the one side and economicsectors such as agriculture and industry onthe other102.

However, the complexity of the labourmarket context is not just the result of thecurrent shortage of jobs, the changingnature of existing jobs or the absence ofreliable information. Rather, it is the overalluncertainty surrounding labour marketdevelopments and structures that createsthe main problems for policymakers. Such

uncertainty is likely to persist for a longtime, and could even become a structuralcharacteristic. Hence, the issue is not somuch to collect hard data, as these wouldnot be easily available in the first place.Under conditions of high labour marketuncertainty, the key policy issue is toestablish sustainable and trustedcommunication platforms between VETinstitutions and the employment system, atall levels (local, regional, national and in allsectors), and to have a flexible and openVET system in place that can respondeffectively to changing skills needs. Ofcourse, labour market data and analyticalcapacities are needed, but their purpose isto facilitate communication betweenstakeholders on developing andimplementing policies and measures.

51


102 Soucek notes, with reference to this issue in the wider Central Asian context, ‘The disparity is thus probablynot the result of deliberate discrimination but of a force of inertia on both sides: tradition of a mostly ruralpopulation on the native side, convenience of an already qualified workforce on the mostly “European”employer’s side, occupational preferences among the educated Central Asians all have played their specificroles.’ (2000, p. 295)

4. MAJOR CHALLENGES FOR

THE REFORM OF VET

4.1 INTRODUCTION

Like all other transition countries, Tajikistanis facing the challenge of reforming its VETsystem. However, although the challengeis the same, the political, social andeconomic context in which this reform is totake place differs markedly from that inother countries. Policymakers in Tajikistanwill therefore need to develop their ownreform policy and strategy based on arealistic assessment of their own needsand opportunities. In doing so, however,they should be able to make good use ofexperiences of VET reform from othercountries, even if these experiences do notproduce a clear blueprint that can be easilycopied and implemented.

Experience from other market economiesand transition countries shows that awell-functioning VET system is crucial foreconomic and social development103.Without a well-educated and qualifiedlabour force, covering the differentqualification types and levels needed by an

evolving employment system, no countrycan secure prosperity and decentstandards of welfare and well-being for itspeople. The availability of a stratum ofworkers with mid-level qualifications,including skilled workers, technicians andmid-level professionals, is one of the pillarsof sustained economic and socialdevelopment. This understanding is acornerstone of the employment, educationand social policies of EU Member States,and of their cooperation with andassistance to third countries. It is on thisvery issue that Tajikistan is currently facinga major challenge.

4.2 CURRENT SITUATION INTAJIKISTAN

In Tajikistan, VET no longer producesrelevant qualifications for a skilled andcompetent workforce. Nor for that matter is itseen by young people and their families asan attractive educational option because itno longer prepares individuals for a positive

53

4

103 For a review, see the various chapters in Grootings, ETF (2004).

occupational future. VET has developedinto an instrument of social protection forchildren from poor families. This situation isthe result of a longer process that has alsooccurred in other countries of the formerSoviet Union, but which in Tajikistan hasbeen aggravated and further complicatedby the more recent events ofindependence, transition and civil conflict.

In Tajikistan the main attraction of basicvocational schools at the turn of the 21stcentury has become the provision of freemeals and shelter for children from poorhouseholds, whose families could notafford to send their offspring to other typesof schools. The social protection function ofthe vocational school system has becomeeven more important because of thecollapse of other social welfare institutionsin a context where poverty among thepopulation has dramatically increased.Authorities are therefore not much inclinedto let this social protection mechanism slipaway as well, even though the socialprotection role currently played byvocational schools has all thecharacteristics of temporary emergencyaid104.

However, despite its increasing focus onsocial welfare functions, the VET system inits current shape falls short of being aneffective instrument for sustained povertyalleviation. This is because of the way it isorganised and the provision it offers. Itdoes not deliver the kinds of knowledge,skills and competence that would enable itsstudents to find or create gainful anddecent employment105. The VET systemhas been unable to respond properly tonew and emerging needs for knowledgeand skills. Indeed, companies that havejobs to offer have become increasinglyunsatisfied with the skills, knowledge andcompetences possessed by vocationalschool graduates, and are unwilling toemploy and retrain them. Given the highlevels of unemployment among graduatesfrom other types of education, employershave sufficient choice in any case. This has

become critical in a situation where most, ifnot all, of the jobs formerly provided bylarge state-owned industrial andagricultural enterprises, for whichvocational schools still prepare, havedisappeared. Young graduates and adultswith a traditional vocational qualificationsuch as those provided by basic vocationalschools find it difficult to find or keepemployment. If they have foundemployment, they are among the lowestpaid106. Thus, VET will only be able tocontribute effectively to the reduction ofpoverty when it takes its primary role ofqualifying individuals for decent work moreseriously.

To what extent does the VET systemqualify graduates for obtaining andretaining a position on the labour market,by providing them with relevant skills of anappropriate quality and with a vocationalqualification recognised and appreciated byemployers, other education institutions andpotential future students? A more detailedassessment of its qualifying role foremployment presents the following picture.

� VET is currently still heavilysupply-driven. Policymakers do notbase their decisions concerning thecontents and coverage of VETprogrammes on information on andanalysis of labour marketdevelopments. Such information is notactually available, nor are capacities inplace to collect and analyse labourmarket data and to prepare these as abasis for informed policymaking. Thismeans that decisions on the educationprogrammes to be offered, theknowledge, skills and attitudes thatstudents should be taught, and thenumber of students to be admitted tothese programmes are at best based oncommon sense and anecdotalinformation. However, what happens inreality is that everyone in the systemsimply continues doing what they havebeen doing since the 1980s. The aim isto keep the system running.

54


104 Its importance – especially in financial terms – appears to be exaggerated The cost per meal per studentamounted to TJS 0.16 in 2005. Total expenditures on meals are TJS 1,193,540 which is 17% of the budget.VET Department, Ministry of Labour and Social Protection, 2005.

105 See for the concept of decent employment, ILO.

106 Godfrey (2002).

� There is very little interest from theprivate sector in becoming involved inVET, not only in terms of providingpractical training opportunities orcofunding, but also in terms of policydevelopment and consultations. This istrue for employers and unions. As aresult, the MoLSP continues to draw online ministry input to policy debates (theMinistries of Economy, Industry,Construction, and Agriculture, as formerstate employers). It must also think andact as a kind of enlightened state onbehalf of private employers indeveloping reform policies that arerelevant to labour markets. Socialpartnership is only in its infancy.Moreover, reform thinking is mainlylimited to national-level discussions.This situation makes the reform projectvulnerable and puts its sustainability atrisk.

� The qualifying role of the variousschools and programmes is not veryclear. Different VET programmes (one,two and three-year programmes)provided by different institutions appearto differ according to the generaleducation level that they provide ratherthan the occupational skill level forwhich they qualify students. In otherwords, it is possible to obtain the samequalification through differentprogrammes of different durations thatdiffer only in the amount and level ofgeneral education they provide. There isno relationship between levels ofqualifications on the labour market andlevels of VET programmes.

� In fact, it appears that the commonunderstanding that VET programmesqualify skilled workers, that technicaleducation qualifies specialists and thatshort-term courses provided by theemployment services produce aqualification comparable to that of theVET programmes (but without offeringgeneral education) still prevails, withoutbeing questioned. This structure ofvocational and technical education andtraining reflects the characteristics ofemployment that were prevalent formass-industrial enterprises andlarge-scale agricultural farms. It isill-adapted to the new realities of workand employment.

� All VET programmes continue to beaimed at traditional wage employmentin large industrial complexes and statefarms, without account being taken ofthe drastic decrease in job opportunitiesin industry and the increasing diversityin scale and products in the agriculturalsector. Work in the informal sector isincreasing. The system educatesindividuals for non-existent ordisappearing jobs.

� Moreover, the existing 93 VETprogrammes are based on a list (theso-called Classifier) of 260 occupationson a one-to-one basis. This means thateach occupation from this list has itsown specific programme that preparesindividuals for the narrowspecialisations of a specific job.Specialisation for a fixed set ofjob-related skills starts at the verybeginning of the programme. The scopefor transferring from one programme toanother is severely limited, and oftendoes not exist at all.

� In curriculum terms, school-based VETprogrammes are dominated by a largenumber of general subjects that are notrelated to the vocational orientation ofthe programme, nor to the vocationaltheory and practical parts. Theapproach to the teaching of knowledge,both general and vocation-specific, isbased on knowledge transfer by theteacher, with an emphasis on rotelearning by the student. Even in VET,the traditional view that students shouldlearn pieces of theory, pieces of appliedtheory and practical skills is still present.These three elements of the curriculumremain largely unconnected. Thiscreates a gap between the academicknowledge taught and the real-lifesituations in which this knowledgeshould be applied.

� The contents of the general subjects arethe responsibility of the MoE, and arethe same as those for secondarygeneral schools. The strict division ofresponsibilities in VET for content andcurricula of the general and vocationalelements between different ministrieshas led to a situation in which they aretwo non-integrated parallel parts. Thefocus of the general education elementis to develop purely academic

55

4. MAJOR CHALLENGES FOR THE REFORM OF VET

knowledge for its own sake rather thanas a tool for improving the capacity ofstudents to acquire broad vocationalknowledge and skills. In reality thestrong academic bias of the generaleducation element of the curriculum,with its large number of distinct subjects(17 in total in the three-yearprogrammes), rather reduces the focuson the vocational qualification. It has theadverse effect of limiting the skill levelacquired to that of a semi-skilled workerat best. Against this background it isdifficult to imagine that VET actuallydoes provide vocational skills at thelevel of a skilled worker. Realistically,vocational qualification levels are farlower than this. The incompatibilitybetween general education andvocational qualification levels are amajor obstacle to improving the imageand status of VET.

� The quality and relevance of practicaltraining has decreased rapidly. Theformer close links between vocationalschools and large industrial complexesand state farms have not yet beenreplaced by new ways of cooperatingbetween the education and employmentsectors. This means that work-basedpractical training opportunities have allbut disappeared. The development ofskills now relies on the capacity of thepractical trainers and the availability ofadequately equipped workshops withinvocational schools. However, mostpractical trainers have little experiencefrom the world of work of the occupationfor which they train. New entries into thetraining profession are typically newgraduates from the Technological-Pedagogical Colleges in Dushanbe andKhujand who have no industryexperience. Thus, many trainers have alimited understanding of newtechnologies, have no opportunity toobtain new skills and, furthermore, havehad limited exposure to work situationswhich would allow them to developappropriate competences, attitudes andpractical skills themselves, even in thebasic areas of the occupation for whichthey train.

The extent to which VET also qualifiesindividuals to enter higher levels ofeducation needs some further attention.

� Progression to higher levels ofeducation (including technical schools)is based purely on achievement ingeneral education, whereas thevocational and technical parts are solelyjob-related. This situation reflects theview that VET is for those students whodo not succeed in general and highereducation, and who therefore should beprepared for work. Attending avocational school is the result of anegative choice rather than a positivedecision. Though progression from VETto higher levels of education (bothtechnical and higher education) ispossible following completion of thethree-year programme, graduates rarelyuse this option.

� This aspect of VET is further reinforcedby the fact that different ministries areresponsible for different parts of thecurriculum. Vocational schools have notbeen included in the debates oneducation reform, except indirectlythrough the curriculum discussionsconcerning general education. Nor,obviously, has there been any realcooperation on reform between thedifferent ministries.

� The strict division between vocationaland technical schools does not allow forthe sharing of scarce resources such asequipment and training workshops.Less focus on the institutional foundersof vocational and technical educationcould lead to a more efficient use ofresources.

The overall picture that arises is not verypositive. Effective vocational institutionsshould be able to identify and flexiblyrespond to skills development needs and toprovide the learning environments in whichthe present and future workforces canacquire the competences they need fortheir employability and further studies. Tajikvocational institutions are currently not ableto do this. This is largely the result of alonger-term development in which VET, atleast at the lower levels of the qualificationstructure, has become increasingly isolatedfrom the wider education system. For many

56


years this did not create too many visibleproblems, as long as graduates managedto find jobs and as long as the employmentsystem provided alternative mechanismsfor individual development.

The situation has dramatically changedwith transition. VET is now also isolatedfrom, and no longer in touch with,developments in the employment system.However, as previously argued, awell-developed private sector that couldprovide sufficiently clear signals about thenature of employers’ skill needs does notexist; nor are national ministries oragencies any longer able to determine infull the future needs for knowledge andskills. Clear signals for the future directionof VET will therefore remain the exceptionrather than the rule.

Tajikistan is not the only country that hasexperienced a crisis in its VET system.Similar developments have occurred inother countries, and although theconditions in other countries may not becompletely comparable, some lessons maybe learned from the experience elsewhere.Policymakers may be able to use suchlessons to develop ideas for the reform ofVET that fits the particular context of theircountry.

4.3 LESSONS FROM ABROAD

One of the key lessons for countriesseeking to cope with high levels of labourmarket uncertainty is that VET should notbe too immediately responsive toshort-term labour market needs, butinstead should provide broad qualificationsthat offer a basis for further specialisationand future development.

Another lesson is that VET should perhapsbe responsive not only to enterprises andtheir qualification needs but also to the –often not well formulated – learning needsof the individuals who are seekingemployment or work opportunities. VETafter all is about educating and trainingpeople so that they are able to determinetheir own occupational future, and not justabout producing qualified labour to satisfythe demands of enterprises.

In an uncertain economic and high-risksocial environment, VET institutions can nolonger afford to stick to the kinds ofknowledge and skills they have offered upto now, in particular when these havealready been obsolete for a considerablelength of time. If neither enterprises norpotential students are able to define theirqualification needs, vocational schoolsmust communicate with the students andenterprises in their own community in orderto help them to identify their qualificationneeds and develop programmes to servethese needs. Such a proactive approachcalls for high levels of flexibility andprofessionalism. Schools, teachers andtrainers should have the autonomy toassume these responsibilities.

However, it would be unrealistic to expectindividual schools, given their history andheritage, to be able to develop thenecessary capacities for undertaking allthis on their own. The schools’ mainresponsibility is and remains theorganisation of learning processes thatenable learners to develop the knowledgeand skills they should possess uponleaving school. Teachers, trainers andmanagers of school organisations shouldbe responsible and accountable for this.Other education and training professionalsin the system need to support them withthe development of flexible and high-qualityresponses to training needs, so thatschools can concentrate on their principaltask.

This implies that an overall national VETpolicy exists, agreed among principalstakeholders, including the social partners;this is another important lesson to belearned. Such an overall policy shouldprovide clear frameworks, guaranteetransparent governance and efficientadministration, provide equal access, setpriorities and criteria for funding, defineresponsibilities for achieving objectives,develop overall quality schemes andmaintain quality assurance mechanisms,secure high-quality facilities andprofessional teaching staff, enablecontinuous innovation, and facilitateinternational cooperation and exchange.

57


Such a national VET policy, and theinstitutional set-up required for itsimplementation, also needs to beintegrated with policies in other relateddomains, in particular those relating toeconomic development, employment,education and social protection. Thisshould ensure that VET institutions are incontact with other institutions relevant forsocial and economic development. Aproper balance between responsibilities atnational and lower levels must thereforealso exist.

An important element of any national VETpolicy is to be clear about the objectives ofVET and to ensure that the agreedobjectives are met. Increasingly,policymakers are taking a broad view ofVET, especially in countries where therehas been a long tradition of having VET aspart of the overall education system107.VET has become – or, more correctly, isgradually becoming – an integrated part oflifelong learning systems. Lifelong learningitself has become the dominant policyparadigm for coping with rapid changes inknowledge, skills and attitudes inemployment. This has important curricularand institutional implications, and one ofthese relates to the objectives for VET.

4.4 THE MAIN CHALLENGE

Against the background of the country’sown situation, and in view of lessons fromother countries, policymakers are facing amajor challenge in the reform of the TajikVET system. They will have to transform itscurrent social protection role into one thatallows it to make a real contribution topoverty alleviation, by delivering VETcourses and qualifications that either fulfil alabour market demand or enable people tocreate employment, and that will attractable students who are interested inacquiring professional qualifications. TheVET system will only be able to do this if itmanages to replace its (negative) socialprotection stigma with a (positive)recognised capacity to provide suchrelevant qualifications. However, at thesame time it cannot ignore the fact that it

will also be catering for students from poorfamilies. This is an issue that concerns theoverall VET system, but that affectsvocational schools in particular. The keyissue is therefore that basic VET cannot belimited exclusively to taking care of thepoor. Vocational schools must providebasic levels of qualification that have avalue on the labour market and in the widereducation system, including, though notexclusively, to students from poor families.

The challenge is therefore to develop anoverall VET system that is open andflexible enough to do both: contribute topoverty alleviation, and qualify individualsfor employment and further education.These two objectives go hand in hand.However, this cannot be possible bylooking at the vocational schools inisolation. In order to stop their viciousdownward spiral it will be necessary tohave a more global approach to thereform of the vocational schools and toredefine their place within the overall VETsystem. Basic vocational schools will haveto re-establish a positive relationship withother parts of the education system, andat the same time improve their relevancefor the employment system, in the fields ofinitial and further training, and re-training.

In the medium term it may be necessaryto take an even more radical approachand to replace the currentinstitution-based approach (distinguishingvocational schools and technical colleges)with an approach based on programmesthat prepare students for different levels ofqualification. Such programmes fordifferent levels of qualification may well beprovided in one and the same type ofinstitution. Given scarce resources andthe tremendous need for investment in therefurbishment and modernisation ofinfrastructures, this option will need furtherserious consideration. It will therefore benecessary to establish the appropriatecommunication and consultation platformswithin the government to allow this tohappen.

The brief review of the current state of VETin Tajikistan and the identification of the

58


107 This is in contrast to (mostly Anglo-Saxon) countries, where more focused and narrow labour markettraining, which has not been integrated in overall education systems, has dominated.

major challenges for reform make it clearthat there is much more at stake thanmodernising curricula, updating the skillsand knowledge of teachers and trainers, orproviding finances for new equipment to

schools. The reform agenda is larger andmore fundamental. We shall return to theissues in more detail in the followingchapter, in which the reform agenda isdescribed.

59


5. A REFORM AGENDA FOR

VET IN TAJIKISTAN

5.1 A CONCEPT FOR THEREFORM OF VET

Within the international donor communitythere are various concepts of what shouldhappen to VET, and in particular the part ofVET that is currently under theresponsibility of the MoLSP. One verystrong view is that the public system ofbasic VET, represented by the vocationalschools, should be closed down. There arearguments relating to efficiency andeffectiveness, which boil down to a viewthat VET should not primarily be under theresponsibility of the state and the publiceducation system. Training should be leftto private enterprises and the markets thatgovern them. In contrast, the reformconcept developed by the MoLSP, whichhas been approved by the government,argues for maintaining but radicallyreforming the current system108.It proposes a system of VET for Tajikistanwhich is built on improving and furtherdeveloping the existing infrastructure andresources. However, it does so within a

radically redefined approach that will makethe VET system better and able to respondmore efficiently to new challenges. To thatend, a comprehensive reform agenda hasbeen proposed that includes the mainissues to be addressed in the reform ofVET.

The reform of VET focuses on providingoccupational qualifications that are relevantto current and future needs for qualifiedworkers on the labour market. Thosequalifications must also appeal to anincreasingly heterogeneous group of youngand adult students who are seeking incomethrough decent work. Given that labourmarket requirements and people’squalification needs are not only difficult toidentify but also changing rapidly, the VETsystem needs to be flexible and adaptable.Responsiveness, flexibility and adaptabilitywill need to be secured by establishingeffective consultation platforms betweengovernment and social partners. Additionalelements of reform include increaseddecentralisation of administration and

61

5

108 ‘State Concept of Vocational Education and Training System Reform in the Republic of Tajikistan’. Decreeno 387 of the Government of the Republic of Tajikistan, 1 October 2004.

decision-making, sustainable fundingarrangements, greater autonomy forvocational institutions with regard to thedelivery of education and training, a greateremphasis on practical training in skills andattitudes, reliable assessment standardsand procedures, and the creation of differentpathways for achieving comparablequalifications. Vocational guidance andcounselling must be developed in order toassist individuals to make the rightqualification choices. A professional supportstructure must be put in place to provideinformation for policymaking and to helpinstitutions to develop and introduceinnovations when necessary.

It is suggested that VET in Tajikistanshould be framed, from a short-termperspective, within a poverty alleviationcontext, but should in the long-term enableyoung people and adults not only to enterand develop labour market positions, butalso to qualify for further education and tofunction as responsible citizens in adynamic society. This threefold objectivefor VET needs to be reflected in thecontents and the structure of thecurriculum. VET should be guided byprinciples of lifelong learning. Openhorizontal and vertical pathways into andout of the VET system should guaranteelifelong access to further qualification. Sucha concept must find the right balancebetween the position of VET within theoverall education system and itsconnection with the labour market. Inparticular the vocational schools must bebrought back within an overall VETstructure that covers different levels ofqualifications rather than distinct studentclient groups. In the short term, however,VET should be flexibly responsive toimmediate employment opportunities andthe needs of individuals to find or createdecent work. Finding the balance betweenshort-term poverty alleviation andlong-term lifelong learning calls for awell-designed development strategy basedon wide consultations with stakeholdersand professionals.

The concept also addresses how suchqualifications can be developed, delivered

and assessed in ways that are in line withinternational quality standards. It issuggested that investment should be madein developing an overarching nationalqualification framework. A nationalqualification framework organises thevarious types and levels of qualification in asystematic and coherent manner based onagreed occupational and educationalstandards. A national qualificationframework also defines which courses leadto which qualifications and at which level.It enables VET policy to follow aqualification and programme approachrather than the current institution-basedapproach. It also offers a quality assuranceframework for decentralised andresponsive delivery of qualifications.Finally, a clear and transparent nationalqualification framework provides areference system for internationalcooperation and mobility. Indeed, there isample scope for regional cooperation in thevery development of national qualificationframeworks in neighbouring countries. Thedevelopment of a national qualificationframework will require considerable timeand investment, but internationalexperience also shows that it provides anideal opportunity for government and socialpartners to agree on the main principles ofthe VET system, including necessaryinputs, quality of processes and standardsfor outcomes109.

The concept places great emphasis ondeveloping a VET system that is financiallyaffordable, at least in the long run, and thathas the capacity to adapt flexibly tochanging situations. This assumes theparticipation of social partners andcooperation between the public and theprivate sectors. It also calls for a strongsupport base of research anddevelopment.

The concept also suggests that the reformexperiences of other countries should beclosely followed, including in particularthose of neighbouring countries and othertransition countries, with a view to learningfrom good practice implementedelsewhere. Most other countries that werepart of the former Soviet Union have

62


109 OECD (2005).

63

5. A REFORM AGENDA FOR VET IN TAJIKISTAN

already experienced more than a decadeof reform. Tajikistan’s particular situation asa relative latecomer, and especially therelevance of the wider regional labourmarket for its own economic and socialdevelopment, calls for reform to be seenfrom a global perspective. Policymakers,researchers, practitioners and studentsmust participate in regional and widerinternational VET networks and projects.International cooperation and exchange isan effective way of keeping VET up to dateby providing hands-on experience ofalternative methods.

Finally, as is clear from the above, theconcept assumes that the development ofa modern VET system must involve allstakeholders, including the state, socialpartners, teachers and trainers,researchers and developers, and – last butnot least – students and their parents. Thisis confirmed by the experiences of othercountries which are reforming their VETsystems. Only through a broad involvementof all stakeholders will it be possible todevelop and successfully implement amodern and flexible VET system that isrelevant to the context of Tajik society, forwhich there is a sense of ownership amongthe stakeholders, and which on this basisguarantees commitment and a high degreeof sustainability. Joint participation ininternational exchange and cooperationmay be a strong tool for fostering theinvolvement of different stakeholders, inparticular during the development of newpolicies.

5.2 THE VET REFORMAGENDA

On the basis of the analysis, and followingthe outline of the concept of VET agreedupon by the government, it is possible toformulate an ambitious reform agenda.This agenda includes all the major buildingblocks of a modern and open VET system,and formulates the priority measures thatmust be undertaken in order to set thereform process in motion. The agenda isambitious not only in the sense that itcovers all the key elements of a VETsystem but also because it will requireconsiderable resources, both human andmaterial.

Since national funding, from either the stateor the private sector, will not be sufficient tocover the costs of the reform, themobilisation of funds will necessarilyinclude close cooperation with andcoordination of international assistance.This situation will put great demands on thecapacity to manage a variety of nationaland international projects and programmesin such a way that they all contribute to thereform of the system. This is not an easytask.

The highest priority must be given toensuring that the reform of the VET systemis undertaken by the people who aredirectly involved themselves in the system,from national policymakers to localadministrators, school directors andteachers. This raises the issue ofownership and professional capacity. Thekey issue of VET reform is that all thestakeholders have to learn to play newroles in the system. They can only do thisin practice and together. There must alsobe continuity and feedback. Again, thissituation makes high demands on thecapacity to manage the reform process.Experience from elsewhere shows that thisis often underestimated and neglected.

In brief, the reform agenda includes theelements listed below. These aspects areinterrelated and form part of acomprehensive reform approach.Obviously, not everything can beaccomplished at once, but it is important torealise that individual measures will bedependent on, or have an impact on, otheraspects of the system and therefore thateach needs to be considered as part of anoverall reform strategy.

1. Structure: Moving from an

institution-based approach to

high-quality qualification programmes

for all levels

VET is currently based on the existenceof different schools at upper secondarylevel that deliver different types andlevels of qualification, and that aregoverned and administered by differentministries. Access to these schools isdependent on success in generaleducation. This creates a situation ofisolation from the overall educationsystem for basic and lower vocational

education, gives it the stigma of being alast resort and a dead-end for those notable to learn or who can’t afford tolearn, and prevents the development ofa well-qualified mid-level stratum in theworkforce. A reorientation andrevalidation of occupationalqualifications in VET programmes, andtheir relations at different levels, willmake VET pathways more attractive forindividuals seeking to develop and orimprove their employability.

2. Standards and assessment: Developing

a national qualification framework

VET is also currently based on inputrather than output standards. Inparticular, there is a lot of emphasis onteaching and assessing individualsubjects and the number of teachinghours as key elements of educationstandards. Education standards aredominated by general subjects, with theprofessional qualification being seen asa by-product rather than the core of theprogramme. This does not guaranteethat what students learn in school hasrelevance for what they will need toknow and be able to do in theoccupation or job for which they arepreparing. Nor does it enable studentsto use their vocational qualifications toaccess higher levels of VET.

A national qualification framework willbring coherence, transparency andconsistency to what is now a multitudeof unrelated vocational qualifications. Itwill also give more emphasis to definingand assessing learning outcomes atdifferent levels by ordering theoccupations that exist in the labourmarket according to an agreed set ofcriteria, by sector and level. A nationalqualification framework will alsofacilitate alternative ways of achievingthe knowledge, skills and competencesrequired for occupations, such as byassessing the outcomes of non-formaland informal learning processes. Itshould also leave space for localinitiatives and flexibility, while at thesame time providing a national qualityassurance system. The development ofa pilot qualification framework in one ofthe high-priority economic sectors such

as tourism could further clarify theissues at stake.

3. Contents and curricula: Establishing a

better balance between theoretical

knowledge, practical skills and attitudes

VET programmes are not only biasedtowards general subjects at theexpense of vocational ones. They arealso characterised by the fact thatgeneral subjects, vocational theory andpractical learning are not integrated.Practical learning is often onlycharacterised merely by training innarrow skills (such as how to operate aparticular machine or tool) rather thanlearning how to cope with ordinary andcritical situations that may occur in thereality of the occupation. As aconsequence, little attention is given todeveloping work attitudes.

This has been the traditional approachto VET in many countries, but has formany years been under strain. Modernapproaches, such as those that arecompetence-based, have replacedoutdated knowledge-cum-skill-basedapproaches. These approaches startfrom the basic competences thatgraduates need, and therefore implyradical changes in the content ofcurricula, methods of teaching andlearning, and the definition of learningoutcomes.

4. Teachers and trainers: Attracting

professionals and developing rewarding

careers

Teaching and training in VET hasbecome extremely unattractive becauseof low salaries and unattractive workingconditions resulting from impoverishedVET facilities. However, the existingapproach and institutional set-up forteaching and training in VET requiresradical reforms in line with the need torestructure and reorganiseprogrammes, curricula, teachingmethods and assessment. In particular,vocational teaching staff must becomemore familiar with the reality of theoccupations for which they arepreparing students. This will haveimplications for the organisation andcontents of preservice training,

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in-service training and recruitmentpolicies.

It will also require fundamental changesin the professional roles of teachers andtrainers. Instead of transferring theknowledge or skills that they themselveshave previously acquired, they mustdevelop into professionals who arecapable of organising the learningprocesses to enable their students tobecome competent to start work in theoccupation for which they are preparingthemselves. The importance ofwell-organised learning processes isincreasingly recognised once more, andwith this has come a reassessment ofthe importance of well-educated andtrained professional teachers andtrainers. However, these new roles callfor different pedagogical and domaincompetences on the part of teachersand trainers. These new professionalroles will obviously need to beadequately valued and rewarded interms of salaries and career prospects.

5. Enrolment and progression: Increasing

attractiveness and creating open

pathways

Vocational and technical schoolscurrently have fixed entry and exitpoints based on the duration of theprogrammes. It is practically impossibleto switch programmes or schools, andeach programme is oriented towardsspecific jobs or occupations. Success inattaining general education standards isa condition for entry to higher levels ofeducation. Because of the currentdominance of general subjects and theway in which they are taught, there arehigh dropout rates in lower and uppersecondary education. Large numbers ofyoung people enter the labour marketwithout any qualifications. Some receivea second chance through short coursesoffered by the employment services.Moreover, vocational certificates do notenable students to continue theirstudies at a higher level, even within thesame occupational domain. The systemis rigid, closed and full of dead-endstreets.

If the VET system were to be mademore open, for example by organising

open and flexible horizontal and verticalpathways, entry to VET would be mademuch more attractive. In this way thesystem could also be opened up toadults who wish to improve their formalqualifications. Flexible pathways alsohelp to make the VET system moreefficient, in particular when combinedwith a programme-based approachwithin the context of a nationalqualification framework.

6. School network: Improving quality and

efficiency

The current school network is relativelycostly, particularly in view of the factthat almost all individual schools needheavy investments in refurbishment andmodernisation. Schools are relativelysmall, each having their ownmanagement and overhead structures,and covering a very limited number ofoccupations and programmes. Basicvocational schools are institutionallyseparated from the secondary specialistschools, the former being administeredby the MoLSP and the latter by the MoEor by one of a number of other ministriesand national agencies. They are notconsidered part of an overall VET system.

Given the absence of curricular reform,the poor state of school materialresources and the difficulties they havein attracting and retaining competentteachers and trainers, the quality ofeducation and training is very low in allschools. Most of the programmes havelost their relevance for students andemployers. On the other hand schools,especially those in rural areas, havedeveloped into social institutions thatfulfil functions beyond mere educationand training. Some schools have alsomanaged to enter the market forcontinuing education and training. Astrategy for restructuring the existingschool network must be based on thesevarious considerations. There is anurgent necessity to develop such astrategy.

7. Research and development: Investing in

capacity building for support

infrastructure

One consequence of the fact that theTajik education system was integrated

into the Soviet system was that nonational support and developmentinfrastructure existed when the countrybecame independent. Up to nowTajikistan has not had the financial andprofessional resources to build this up.All standard curricula, materials andequipment were formerly provided byMoscow, and innovations were alsointroduced from the centre. Moreover, inthe past all the information needed toallocate resources was provided by theadministration, from the local to thenational level. No monitoring systemexisted, nor did an independentresearch infrastructure providefeedback to policymakers. This explainswhy there is currently a simultaneouslack of reliable data and analysis, andan absence of capacity to providethese. The small units that have beenestablished inside the ministries arefacing an impossible task. Research atthe universities and other institutes ofhigher education has traditionally notbeen of an applied or policy-orientednature; even if institutions were createdto undertake policy-oriented researchand practical development andinnovation work, there would be fewpeople with adequate competences andexperience to carry out this work. Suchwork is currently mainly undertaken byNGOs and financed by internationaldonors: a lack of continuity and theremoteness from policymaking are themain problems raised by this situation.There is an urgent need for thedevelopment of a professional supportinfrastructure that is at the service ofboth policymakers and practitioners inthe schools. Different models can beapplied, ranging from a centralisedstructure that is close to ministries, to arelatively independent one that is closeto universities, or a more flexible anddecentralised structure that is close toschools. Given available resources, themost appropriate model would probablybe a mixed structure that uses theresearch capacities of universities aswell as the practical innovationcapacities of experienced and dedicatedteachers in schools. The research anddevelopment infrastructure, togetherwith the in-service teacher and trainer

training sector, would constitute a newcareer domain for experienced teachesand trainers, in addition to the presentcareer paths into managerial andadministrative functions at regional andnational level.

8. Governance: Establishing tripartite

platforms for VET

The MoLSP, with support from theOffice of the President’s Administration,is currently leading the reform of VET,at least in terms of the basic vocationalschools. The MoE’s main concerncontinues to be primary and generaleducation reform. Employers and tradeunions, with the exception of theteachers’ union, are not very muchengaged in the debate on the future ofVET. This is partly because the privatesector is not yet well organised, andalso because it currently has otherurgent matters to deal with. However, inorder to develop broad ownership of,and participation in, the reform policy itwill be of the utmost importance for theMoLSP to continue its attempts toinvolve employers and trade unionrepresentatives, at all levels, nationally,regionally and locally.At national level, early involvement inreform policy debates leading to asense of co-ownership may alsofacilitate other forms of participation at alater stage, such as providing practicaltraining facilities, taking part inoccupational standard setting,examination and even co-financing ofVET. At regional and local level, theparticipation of social partners in theimplementation and monitoring of policyinitiatives will contribute greatly toensuring that the VET provided byschools is relevant to the labour market.Overall, the government needs to makea serious investment in order to retaintrust and confidence in the public VETsystem on the part of the social partnersand among employers in particular.

9. Administration and management:

Introducing regional decentralisation

and school autonomy

Given the increasing heterogeneity ofskill needs in companies and amongprospective students, a centralised and

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standardised VET system will never beable to produce the necessary flexibilityand responsiveness. In the absence ofclear signals, schools must be able tocommunicate actively with theirpartners. This is particularly the casewhere traditional employment structureshave collapsed and new ones, in boththe formal and informal sectors, areemerging only slowly. Under suchconditions, schools cannot rely onproviding standard programmes,especially when these were originallydesigned for highly specialised jobs inmass production or agriculture.

A proactive and innovative approach byvocational schools requirescompetences from its managers,teachers and trainers that still need tobe developed. This also requires achange of the current administrative andfunding arrangements. However,decentralisation in this sense goesbeyond giving more authority to lowerlevels in the public administrationsystem, and requires increasedautonomy for schools. Increasing theautonomy of schools in deciding on thecontent of vocational programmes andthe methods by which they aredelivered may run the risk of divergingquality levels. It is for this reason thatthe quality assurance provided by anational qualification framework is soimportant.

10 Financing: Diversifying funding sources

and moving towards per capita funding

The current centralised and itemisedfunding system does not allow anyfinancial flexibility at school level.Moreover, funding from the MoLSPcovers only part of the salaries andsocial costs incurred by schools and isin no way sufficient to covermaintenance, renovation andinnovation. Schools are allowed to seekadditional sources of income, but tendto opt for non-education-related sources(such as renting out premises or sellingproducts produced by students) that donot contribute to improvements in thequality or relevance of the educationthey provide. In addition, enterprisingschools are penalised because they are

required to pass on some of theirincome to the central authorities. Thissituation does not motivate schools tolook for additional funding.

At the moment, financial contributionsfrom the private sector, either monetaryor in kind, are very rare. In view of risingpoverty levels and the fact that parentsin rural areas send their children tovocational schools because theyreceive shelter and a meal,contributions from families to vocationalschools can be excluded. In fact, mostadditional funding to schools nowprobably comes from internationaldonor projects and is of an ad hoc andtemporary nature. Moving towards a percapita funding system may allowschools to develop greater autonomyand responsibility. The search for adiversified funding strategy is more of amedium-term issue, althoughconsideration of this must start urgently.In the short term, mobilisation of theinternational donor community tosupport the reform of VET in the contextof the Poverty Reduction Strategyseems to be the most feasible option.

11.Legislation: Drafting an integrated law

on VET for young and adults

Legislation prepared up to now hasbasically served to fill the regulatorygaps left when Tajikistan declaredindependence and had to establish aproper legislative basis for a nationaleducation system. There are separatelaws for the various educationsubsectors, including for basicvocational schools. The currentlegislation is not based on a view thatrecognises the need for lifelonglearning.

Vocational education for young peopleand VET for adults will need to beintegrated into one comprehensivepiece of legislation that should alsoprovide the legal basis for some of theother elements that have beenelaborated in this reform agenda: thenational qualification framework,involvement of social partners,decentralised administration and schoolautonomy, per capita financing and

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additional funding sources, and theresearch and developmentinfrastructure. The new legislativeframework will have to be an enablinglegislation rather than a prohibiting one,since the reform process itself is largelya learning process for all stakeholdersinvolved.

12.International cooperation and exchange:

Profiting from lessons of good practice

and regional cooperation

Upon its independence, Tajikistan notonly faced the challenge of setting up itsown national education system. It alsolost access to the Soviet educationspace, which had provided foreducational mobility and exchange,facilitated by the common Russianlanguage. Although the reform of VETwill have to fit the national context ofTajikistan, and no other country’ssystem can therefore be easily copied,there exists a rich variety ofinternational experience of how similarchallenges have been handledelsewhere.

Policymakers, teachers, trainers andstudents should be helped to make useof that experience through manifoldforms of cooperation and assistance.These could include cooperation inpolicy learning, partnerships betweenschools and other vocationalinstitutions, and mobility and exchangeof teachers and students. It will beparticularly important to use cooperationas a means of strengthening regionalcontacts, not only becauseneighbouring countries are facingsimilar issues, but also because of theregional economic and labour marketdimensions. In other parts of the world,including the EU, cooperation betweencountries in a ‘technical’ area such asVET has facilitated cooperation in moresensitive areas.

5.3 DEVELOPMENT ANDIMPLEMENTATION OF THEREFORM STRATEGY:IMMEDIATE PRIORITIES

A review of the current situation indicatesthat there is increased understanding andagreement among stakeholders concerningcritical VET reform issues. This is wellillustrated by the development of a VETreform concept by the MoLSP and itsacceptance by the government. However,this is the case mainly at national level andfor representatives of various governmentinstitutions. Although the MoLSP has takenthe initiative to set up a so-calledInter-sectoral Working Group to jointlydevelop the concept for VET reform, thereform discussions have not yet includedother stakeholders (social partners) atregional and local levels. Hence, there is aneed to broaden the involvement of theseother stakeholders in the principaldiscussions so as to ensure increasedrelevance of VET for the emergingemployment system.

However, at the same time, policy analysisand debate are conceptually still framed bythe particularities of Tajikistan’s history andsituation. This concerns in particular thefocus on vocational schools in isolationfrom the wider education and VET system.There is therefore an implicit acceptancefrom the traditional role and status of thesevocational schools, overemphasising thesocial function of VET (in a narrow sense,i.e. the provision of schooling and meals tochildren of poor families) at the expense ofother functions, and in particular thequalification function. Communication andcoordination between the MoLSP and theMoE must be intensified in order to ensurethat basic vocational education once againbecomes integrated in an overall – andlifelong – education policy and system.

Moreover, the emphasis in reform debatesis still on the identification of funds and themodernisation of curricula and equipmentas the main issues to be resolved. Thereappears to be limited understanding ofsystemic reform issues at national andregional level. There has also been verylittle exposure to VET reform experiencesin other transition countries, including

68


neighbouring and other CIS countries.Conceptually, therefore, the debate needsstronger international reflection. This mayalso contribute to the ability to questionsome of the inherited characteristics of theVET system and to pursue a more radicalreform.

The VET concept developed by the MoLSPshows that a reform process has alreadystarted, though it needs to be furtherdeveloped, as set out above. Mostimportantly, it must also be translated intoan implementation strategy that has clearpriorities and objectives and is based onrealistic resources, both human andfinancial.

The first steps have also been taken inrelation to capacities for implementing VETreforms. There is a dedicated team in place

for the management and coordination ofthe reform process, though this teamrequires further strengthening and capacitybuilding. The team involved in coordinatingthe VET reform strategy must also bebetter integrated into the overalleducational reform structures in order toensure that VET remains part of theeducation system and will become anintegrated element of a future nationallifelong learning system.

Professional capacities to take onoperational reform and modernisationinitiatives, such as reforms of curricula,textbooks and teachers/trainers, areseverely limited, both quantitatively andqualitatively, at both national and schoollevel. This remains a major issue ofconcern, and will need to be addressedmore seriously.

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REFERENCES

Asian Development Bank, Sub-regional cooperation in managing education reforms.

Country study: Tajikistan, Dushanbe, 2002.

Asian Development Bank, ‘Economic Trends and Prospects in developing Asia, CentralAsia’, Asian Development Outlook 2004, downloaded 08.11.2004 from www.adb.org

Asian Development Bank, ‘Key indicators – Tajikistan’, downloaded 27.02.2006 fromwww.adb.org

Atachanov, M., ‘Personnel procurement of IVET system of the Republic of Tajikistan’,unpublished paper, Ministry of Labour and Social Protection, Dushanbe, 2004.

Burnet, N. and Temourov, M., Tajikistan. Education sector review. Meeting the Education

Challenge: Policy options for the next generation, Human Development Sector Unit,Europe and Central Asia Region, World Bank, Washington, 2002.

European Training Foundation, Transnational analysis of VET in the New Independent

States and Mongolia, Turin, 2002.

Executive Apparatus of the President of the Republic of Tajikistan, Science and EducationDepartment, National concept of education of the Republic of Tajikistan (unofficialtranslation), Dushanbe, April 11 2002.

Godfrey, M., ‘Secondary vocational education and the labour market in Tajikistan: a review’(draft), unpublished report, 2002.

Government of the Republic of Tajikistan, Resolution on approval of the national concept

of education of the Republic of Tajikistan (unofficial translation), Dushanbe, 2002.

Grootings, P. (ed.), Learning matters. ETF Yearbook 2004, European Training Foundation,Turin, 2004.

Grootings, P. and Nielsen, S., (eds.), Teachers and trainers: Professionals and

stakeholders in the reform of VET, ETF Yearbook 2005, European Training Foundation,Turin, 2005.

International Monetary Fund, Independent evaluation office and World Bank, OperationsEvaluation Department, Republic of Tajikistan. Evaluation of the Poverty Reduction

Strategy Paper (PRSP). Process and Arrangements Under the Poverty Reduction and

Growth Facility (PRGF), Washington, 6 July 2004.

International Monetary Fund, Republic of Tajikistan: Statistical Appendix, IMF CountryReport No. 01/69, Washington, 2001.

International Organisation for Migration, Labour migration from Tajikistan, July 2003.

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King, K. and Palmer, R., Skills development and Poverty Reduction: The State of the Art,

European Training Foundation, Turin, 2005

Kodusov, J., ‘Labour market requirements of the Republic of Tajikistan’, unpublishedreport, Ministry of Labour and Social Protection, Dushanbe, 2004.

Kurbanov, S., Macroeconomic Survey: Tajikistan 2003, Swiss Cooperation Office –Tajikistan, Dushanbe, 2003.

Kurbanov, S., ‘Cooperation between the Republic of Tajikistan and the InternationalMonetary Fund: Preliminary results. Central Asia and the Caucasus’. Journal of Social

and Political Studies, 2004.

McGrath, S., ‘Skills for Development: a new approach to international cooperation in skills

development?’ Journal of Vocational Education and Training, Vol. 54, No 3, 2002, pp.413–430.

Meyer, K., The dust of empire. The race for supremacy in the Asian Heartland, Abacus,London, 2004.

Ministry of Labour and Social Protection, ‘Law on Basic Vocational Education’, Dushanbe

OECD, The Contribution of National Qualification Frameworks to Lifelong Learning, Paris,2005.

Olimova, S. and Bosc, I., Labour Migration form Tajikistan, International Organization forMigration, Sharq Scientific Research Center, Dushanbe, 2003.

Pulatov, P., ‘On the reform of Initial VET in Tajikistan’, unpublished paper, Dushanbe,2004.

Soucek, S., A History of Inner Asia, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000.

Wilks, A. and Lefrancois, F., Blinding with Science or Encouraging Debate? How World

Bank Analysis Determines PRSP Policies, Bretton Woods Project and World VisionInternational, London, 2002.

World Bank, Tajikistan Country Brief 2003, 2003, downloaded on 11.08.2004 fromwww.worldbank.org

World Bank, ‘Tajikistan Education Sector Review’, 10 October 2002

World Bank, ‘Republic of Tajikistan. Strategic directions of the long-term education sectorreform strategy (2004–2015)’, Briefing note, 2004.

World Bank, ‘Major Directions of Tajikistan’s Education Medium-Term Reforms’,Developed in the framework of World Bank-supported project in education reform,2004.

World Bank, ‘Tajikistan Poverty Assessment Update’, Main Report, Washington, 2004.

UNESCO, Tajikistan. Education for All Assessment country report, 2000, downloaded on01.02.2005 from http://www2.unesco.org/wef/countryreports/tajikistan/rapport_1.html

United Nations, Moving Mountains. The UN Appeal for Tajikistan, United Nations, NewYork, 2005.

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LIST OF ACRONYMS

ADB Asian Development Bank

CACO Central Asian Cooperation Organisation

CIS Community of Independent States

DFID UK Department for International Development

EFA Education for All

EU European Union

GBAO Gorno Badakshan

GDP Gross domestic product

GTZ Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Technische Zusammenarbeit

ILO International Labour Organisation

IMF International Monetary Fund

ISCED International standard classification of education

MES Modules of employable skills

MoE Ministry of Education

MoLSP Ministry of Labour and Social Protection

NGO Non governmental organisation

OECD Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development

RRS Regions of Republican Subordination

PRSP Poverty reduction strategy paper

SDC Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation

SME Small and medium sized enterprises

TJS Tajik somoni

UN United Nations

UNDP United Nations Development Programme

UNESCO United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation

VET Vocational education and training

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EUROPEAN TRAINING FOUNDATION

THE REFORM OF VOCATIONAL EDUCATION ANDTRAINING IN THE REPUBLIC OF TAJIKISTAN

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