Gov’t officially states introduction of school uniform has been delayed

It has been officially decided that the introduction of school uniforms in Uzbekistan will be postponed until the following years. On October 3, the decision No. 558 of the Cabinet of Ministers was adopted.

According to it, the introduction of the school uniform will be introduced gradually over the next 3 years, not from the 2022/23 academic year. It is not yet known what these steps will be.

It should be noted that the government’s decision on the school uniform has been changed several times so far.

In this regard, the decree No. 666 was adopted in 2018, in which it was determined that the uniform will be optional from the 2018/19 academic year and mandatory from the 2019/20 academic year. But after this caused public objections, in particular, with the intervention of Saida Mirziyoyeva, the term was postponed until the 2024/25 school year.

However, the government did not want to wait until 2024. In May 2022, decree No. 666 was amended and the uniform was announced to be mandatory from the 2022/23 academic year. After this was again met with objections, in July, it was announced that uniforms would not be mandatory this year amid constitutional reforms.

The uniform requirement is now expected to be phased in by 2025. It is not yet known from which year the uniform will be mandatory for schoolchildren. 

Earlier Kun.uz reported that the administration of some schools encourages parents to buy school uniforms of approved design for their children. According to the MPE spokesperson, in response to our inquiry, uniforms can be promoted by schools, but this cannot be a reason to expel a pupil from school.