Paper abstract:

In the past 25 years many types of public and private schools have been established in Uzbekistan creating an educational market. While there were educational choices available to parents’ in the Soviet Union, the educational market is much more highly developed. Research on Parents’ Choices and Educational Market in Dushanbe, Tajikistan (Whitsel, 2014), eight cities in Kazakhstan (Whitsel, 2020) and Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan (Abdoubateva, 2019) show strong similarities in what parents’ value.

This paper extends the scholarship by analyzing interviews with parents who also work as teachers. This paper will be based on interviews with parents conducted in Tashkent Spring of 2022. Preliminary analysis indicates that teachers share similar preferences as other parents in school location. In conducting research about schools teachers often visit schools in their neighborhood to gain first-hand information. Similar to other parents, teachers also value mathematics and sciences over humanities subjects. Teachers choosing private schools look both at the quality of the classrooms, as well as value the extracurricular activities available.