Abstract:

In 1991, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan inherited the same higher education system from the Soviet Union. In 2024, their systems differ substantially, in four inter-related categories: internationalization, massification, privatization, and quality assurance. For example, Kyrgyzstan quickly established two jointly-governed universities, the Kyrgyz-Russian Slavic University and the Kyrgyz-Turkish Manas University; agreed to the headquarters and then an undergraduate campus of the Aga Khan-funded University of Central Asia; actively participated in Erasmus and other international grant programs, hosted Fulbrights, and permitted the establishment of foreign-influenced universities such as the American University in Central Asia and the [then named] International Ataturk Ala-Too University. Private universities were allowed almost immediately, leading to a substantial increase in the proportion of secondary school students continuing on the higher education and, at one point, more than 20 private medical schools teaching in English, aimed at the South Asian international student market. Uzbekistan, on the other hand, with, by design, the lowest percentage of secondary school students continuing to higher education of any of the former Soviet republics, warily accepted a small number of international branch campuses, and did not allow domestic private institutions until after Karimov died. Quality assurance still is handled by the government, whereas in Kyrgyzstan, six private accreditation agencies actively evaluate both programs and institutions.

Based on participant observation, interviews, campus visits, and document analysis during ten weeks in the summer of 2023 and seven months in the first half of 2024, supplemented by long-standing observations of both systems, I argue that the differences in the higher education systems in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan are based more on divergences in political leadership, economic realities, legal structures, and demographics than on differences in visions among educators.