Aziza Umarova speaks about problems concerning shortage of personnel in Uzbekistan

Executive Director of the Smartgov Consulting bureau Aziza Umarova told Kun.uz about problems concerning shortage of personnel in certain spheres.

“Looking at the personnel shortage, I understand that a deliberate restriction of access to higher education over the past 27 years has had far-reaching goals. The result is obvious – classiness and mass stratification,” she noted.

According to the World Bank, the level of enrollment in higher education in Uzbekistan is equal to that of African countries – 9.5% (2017) that is, three times lower than the neighboring countries in the region.

“We are getting rid of quotas gradually, the coverage will increase slightly, but a tacit ban on private universities still hampers the modernization of higher education,” Aziza Umarova noted.

In her opinion, the current shortage of higher education opportunities led to the outflow of talented youth to other countries, and also deprived rural youngsters of social elevators.

“We need to expand coverage. No foreign affiliates that enroll couple of hundred students will solve the issue of expanding access to education. School graduates – 650,000 people – means this much new labor force entering the labor market annually. That is simple mathematics, hundreds of branches of Russian, Korean, Turkish, and any other countries’ universities should be opened each year,” she said.

Aziza Umarova noted that the only way out is to revise the approaches, liberalizing the sphere by giving autonomy to state universities and encouraging the creation of private universities in different parts of the country, understanding the market constitution and introducing the modern system of skills and competencies.

“These steps will gradually increase human capital,” she concluded.