Role of non-governmental organizations ( NGOs ) in education development of post-independent Tajikistan

In the early 1990s Tajikistan emerged from the soviet union as new country. It disrupted all the services including educational enjoying Tajik people under USSR. The post-Soviet period in the region has been tumultuous and uncertain. The educational transition, its tasks and exact prospects seems unclear and bleak. Education spending suffered a rapid decline, rolling-back some of the achievements the sector enjoyed during the previous period. Pre-school enrolments have dropped to a fraction of their previous levels, school enrolment rates are slipping, education quality is at risk and vast numbers of youth, over half the populations, have no prospects of finding work. As a consequence, the issues of access and equity in education have become more pronounced: women and girls are worse off, rural areas more marginalized and minorities are under threat. Under such situation the role of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) becomes natural to rebuild the disruptive system. The present study is an attempt to analyze the role of NGOs in this regard.


INTRODUCTION
Change and continuity is the law of nature and the later is as important as the former.Both are unstoppable and cannot be arrested from the axis of dynamism.Change is more concrete and can be studied easily than continuity which is flowing process.Tajikistan inherited high levels of human capital which obviously scores ceaseless value in the overall development of a country.Soviets, in order to have a solid base in Tajikistan advocated such programmes that promised them a bright prospect not only in Tajikistan but also in entire Central Asia.Lot of improvements were made by them in areas like, healthcare and women empowerment etc. (Suad and Afsaneh, 2005) i .Similarly, some elementary changes were made by them in education sector and made it free for all (Hutton and Redmond, 2000).

EDUCATION AND ROLE OF NGOs
Until Tajikistan had their independence in 1991education was dominated by the ideological fashion and spread throughout the Soviet Union.Soviet ideology penetrated all levels of life beginning from pre-school and continuing through secondary school, higher education.Schools were required to indoctrinate students with a military atheistic ideology.Russians employed professionally E-mail: darfirdos@gmail.comAuthor agree that this article remain permanently open access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 International License  Source: International qualifications assessment service government of Alberta www.immigration.alberta.ca/iqastrained teachers and contemporary languages were taught everywhere.A scientific outlook and historical materialism was seen shedding down from the so called 'Soviet Man' (Eklof et al., 2005).They introduced first bilingual approach and later made largely Russian to come into play for the Soviet education to get trickled down among the masses.ii  The absence of the non-governmental or third sector (NGOs) and the lack of an alternative approach or the perception of civil society's tasks generated an ideological policy that dominated all spheres of education.iii What was needed were the carriers of the language who would give patronage and soft corner to such kind of innovations.They came in flocks and such migration witnessed 13% in 1959 which was 0.7% in 1926 in Tajikistan (Ziegler, 2006).iv They patronized Soviet language and much of the work in schools and educational centers outside Central Asia for Central Asian students were imparted in Russian language.This was a deliberate move to inculcate Russian sympathy among newly and future Central Asian generations.

Pre-school education
In education Soviets proposed such framework which guaranteed a well future oriented path for them.The preschool education, general secondary, primary, secondary special and higher professional education, postgraduate and in-service training and retraining were organized with a balanced note.General secondary education consisted of three stages v as shown in Table 1 and 2. The network of pre-schools was not as extensive in Tajikistan as elsewhere in the Soviet Union (Shagdar, 2006) vi ; even in 1989 it is estimated that only seventeen (17%) of 3 to 6 year olds were enrolled in kindergarten, compared with thirty one (31%) in Kyrgyz Republic, thirty nine (39 %) in Uzbekistan and fifty two (52%) in Kazakhstan (UNICEF 1998).However, enrolment rates have came down to just eight (8%) in 1996.Over the period 1990 to 1998 the number of kindergartens shrank by forty (40%), from 958 to 562.vii This was largely the result of the closure of enterprise-based (employer provided) kindergartens, with most of the decline taking place in rural areas viii .However, over the same period the number of children enrolled in pre-schools fell by threequarters, from 150,000 to 53,000.Increasingly, it appears that Tajik families prefer to take care of their children at home.ix In addition to reducing enrolment rates, there are growing problems with school non-attendance and students dropping out of education.While official data reflect relatively low dropout rates, unofficial estimates and anecdotal evidence point to considerably higher figures.x Figure 1 shows the kindergarten net enrolment rate.
Enrolment rates have historically, been high, which was 94% in 1990, It fell to eighty five (85%) in 1996, since then they have recovered somewhat.In 1998 there were eighty nine girls per hundred boys enrolled in lower secondary schools.As per World Bank poverty assessment update, attendance in education has dropped since 2000, and fall in secondary and post-secondary education is noticeable.It is because of increasing cost of education, decline in quality of schooling and the remote physical location of some educational institutions.Dropouts were seen more in girls and some girls prefer to BIHUTAN.Hence, educational provisions in Tajikistan become uneven in quality and relevance created inequalities in access.
Education is no longer free, parents pay for books, uniforms; contribute to school repairs and subsidies the salaries of teachers.State schools and territory establishments now attach user fees to popular course such as English, economics and information technology.Such miserable figures left deep impact and resulted in deteriorating infrastructure, collapsing school buildings, the lack of teaching and learning material.Low and delayed remuneration and there has been qualified drain as teachers left schools for better jobs or better earnings.xi All the privileges teachers had enjoyed such as stable jobs, ample professional development opportunities, and a respected social status, began to erode rapidly after the collapse of Soviet Union as values related to profit replaced the high value placed on education.This trend has severely affected teachers as a professional group, resulting in multiple financial, professional and social losses.First, teacher salaries declined dramatically, and could no longer provide for an average sized family.Second, professional support and recognition of teachers decreased as the states failed to fulfill their legal obligation to provide regular in-service training.xii Third, the teaching profession lost its social respect as teachers began to be more concerned about personal survival than educating children.Government efforts to expand the number of teachers in the education sector have been implemented at the expense of quality.
Of the total number of teachers in Tajikistan, only 62% have completed a higher education degree.
Independent Tajikistan, in order to address to the elementary requirements of education, made an ideal room under proper care for Tajik education as they took into cognizance those issues which earlier stayed away from the concerns of academicians.They therefore tried to meet every challenge in order to seek a better place for Tajik society.xiii Since independence numerous reform measures have been developed and implemented in the education sector in Tajikistan, with generous support from international donors.New legislation was developed to redefine the state education policy.The reform and legislative initiatives focused mostly on the key issues facing the education sector like equal access to education, gender equality, refurbishment of facilities, teacher training, curriculum reform, and upgrades of textbooks.A transition from the "command", centralized mentality of the Soviet period to a market-oriented approach is an underlying factor influencing the educational reform.Education financing in Tajikistan has also undergone a series of reforms, mainly under the framework of education for all.International donors have been generous in supporting of its implementation as well as improvements to the public financial management system.xiv  Besides this, the ministry of education authorized a new measure allowing the recruitment of teachers from a number of successful secondary school graduates.Inservice training centers have been closed over the last ten years.Existing in-service training system is not always affordable to teachers, who now have to assume Int.NGOJ.some costs associated with their professional development (example, travel and accommodation costs).As a result, teachers from poor, rural areas have much fewer chances for professional development than those from urban areas.
As a result of all these efforts Tajiks witnessed a number of changes in the current system of education.From 1991 to 2006 small changes were seen in the public ideology as a result of the influence of foreign and international organizations.Slowly day by day pluralism crept into society.In addition, the Soviet system of education disappeared during this period, and a new system based on both governmental and nongovernmental programs appeared.Education has been portrayed to feed the civic values.Review and renovation of civic education curriculum, both at secondary and higher level with stress on vocational courses.Introduction of the subject, "The history of country" instead of "The history of the USSR" (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) and "The History of Tajik SSR (Soviet Social Republic)"; review of the content of humanities subjects within the school curriculum; renovation of the content of the curriculum for subjects in vocational and higher education; introduction of new subjects like political science, economic theory, the theory of political and legal study, ethics, aesthetics, and meeting modern scientific and educational approaches were developed and accepted.xv 1990s NGOs in Tajikistan involved themselves with humanitarian works like helping families with disabled children and being by their side in critical junctures of time like surviving during the merciless grip of war.But once political and economic environment improved the NGOs resorted to the development of education.Some of the NGOs came forward to guarantee the welfare of the certain sections of Society.xvi The contribution of international NGOs, donors and other organizations in planning and funding of the education system of Tajikistan is of paramount.With international donors, local NGOs began to voice the needs of the civil society.In the past ten years Tajikistan has received financial assistance for education reform from many international organization including the world Bank, ADB, UNICEF, UNESCO, USAID, OSAIF-Tajikistan, Aga Khan Foundation, German technical cooperation Agency.xvii More attention paid to non-formal education from the INGO/NGO sides.There are seminars and debates on: 1) Law education/Human rights education 2) AIDS/HIV 3) Gender, Tolerance 4) Healthy lifestyle 5) Ecology xviii 1) 1997 -First donor projects focusing on informal education were conducted.

2)
1999 -2000 -Introduction of the subject "Human Rights" and new subjects on various specialties like "Constitutional Rights", "Entrepreneurship Rights" were introduced into the law curriculum in the higher education system.xix 3) There was an increase in projects focusing on civic education in two spheres: higher and informal education.

4)
2003 -A new program called "Principles of State and Law" for 8 to 11 grades of secondary schools was established including a new course, "Human Rights" for 10 to 11 grades of schools; in addition classroom hours for these subjects were increased by 6 hours.xx   New types of schools have emerged such as academic lyceums, gymnasiums, private schools and schools for gifted children.Schools of the 'old type' have remained; these are not nearly as competitive as the 'new type' of schools.Admission to the 'new type' of schools may depend on family income rather than academic abilities of the child, as many gymnasiums require additional payment from parents.Furthermore, most gymnasiums and lyceums are located in urban areas, further reducing the rural students' chances of attending a good school.Given the uneven distribution of social and economic capital in each country, it is evident that the diversification of the school system may progressively increase selectivity and tracking in the education system, further polarizing society.xxi  The current UNICEF country program ( 2005 to 2009 ) component " quality basic education for all" focuses on supporting efforts reverse in declining demand for education among girls, seeking to improve school management and classroom environment in selected schools through the active participation of children parent groups and communities.Other international donors are also active in promoting basic education in Tajikistan including USAID, PEAKS ( participation, education and knowledge and strengthening) project, Aga Khan foundation's improving basic education in Tajikistan (IBET) in 2005, with the support of UNICEF and the World Bank, the republic of Tajikistan prepared a comprehensive strategic framework and plan in education for the first time.xxii The reform package, about the rehabilitation of school buildings, supplying school furniture and textbook and quality education like revision of school curriculum, development of new courses and teaching learning materials, reform of pre-service and inservice education of teachers and school principles and involvement of community and parents in school management.xxiii  By May 2000, the Tajik NGO Sharq had been selected to conduct a series of focus groups with secondary students and their teachers, with the aim of informing the development of the civic education project.This NGO was aimed to conduct series of lectures on human rights, political participation, rights and duties, election etc. xxiv  Some NGOs started to give literacy classes for girls in Through the partnership with the NGO Parvin they received a grant from Mercy corps to educate 30 girls between the ages of thirteen and sixteen.They also involved the education department of the Ragun district government, which provided them with space in a kindergarten.Thirty girls received basic education through these courses and twelve of them continued their studies at secondary schools.In addition to this, they prepared thirty-five girls who were secondary school graduates for entrance into establishments of higher education.All thirty-five girls are currently pursuing higher education.xxv Table 3 shows a lot of efforts taken for the dissemination of the Tajik education.Table 4 shows a comparison of the education system in 1991 and 2007 at all levels of education in Tajikistan.i In Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan the maternal poverty was highest and most of the children were malnourished.The bad nutrition led to the high levels of anemia especially among the child bearing women.However, the situation improved under Soviets who took measures to rescue mortality rate and therefore, high birth rates were encouraged.This way it also promoted the woman welfare as Soviets declared honorary awards like "Mother of the Union" among the mothers who assured giving birth greater number of children.
ii Language is an integral component of any culture and absorbs education from top to bottom; in fact it is the medium which gives nurtures and increases its validity.In this linguistic situation, the Russian language had little impact on the vast majority of Central Asians before the inauguration of the Soviet regime, except for the few elites who were involved in the tsarist administrative apparatus.However, the situation began to change after 1917.Soviets began to shift their language policy and much of the educational affairs were dealt in Russian education; Mark Dickens, The Impact of Russo-Soviet culture in Central Asia, pp.9-10.http://www.oxuscom.com/Russo-Soviet_Culture_in_CA.pdfiii This domination could be seen in civic education being taught through both the activity of official institutions acting on the basis of state standards and in informal educational institutions (ranging from school clubs up to university courses on Marxism-Leninism.Soviet civic education was completely imposed on citizens, and citizens had no choice but to learn and go along with the ideology; there was no room for individual interpretation.The government used all public institutions and sometimes even violence if necessary to prepare citizens to live in and be proud of a communist society.Development of Civic Education in Tajikistan: Problems and Prospects, www.akdn.org/civil_society.asp,p. 6. iv During the Soviet era, Russians and other Slavs in Central Asia were concentrated in the cities and heavily overrepresented in the skilled labor force.Russians also constituted a large proportion of the population in the capitals, although their Proportion declined steadily from 1959 to 1989.In 1989, the Russian population of Central Asian cities was 59 percent of Alma Ata, 56 percent of Bishkek, 32 per-cent of Ashgabat, 33 percent of Dushanbe, and 34 percent of Tashkent.Russian dominance in the capitals ensured that publishing, culture, sciences, and governance would all be dominated by the Russian language.Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan had the largest proportion of rural Russians, but even in these countries the Russian population was largely urban.Throughout Central Asia, Russians dominated in the intelligentsia, the political and economic sectors, the education, and the military.This migration pattern shaped Russian identities in Central Asia; v www.immigration.alberta.ca/iqas,p. 2. vi Due to the declines in the birth rates, pre-school enrolment rates are down in all countries, with Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic and Uzbekistan at the fore by 46.2%, 23.1% and 20.6%, respectively.Turkmenistan has also experienced a sharp decline in pre-school enrolment from 34.3% in 1990 down to 25.3% in 1999.In rural areas in Turkmenistan, pre-school enrolment has declined three fold over the same period.One argument for this drop in enrolment is the revival of traditional practices and growing nationalism in the republic since independence which have emphasized the importance of raising a child within the family instead of pre-schools.It is also possible that there has been some decline in the demand for pre-schools because of rising unemployment in the female population, leaving many mothers at home.Tertiary enrolment has also slumped substantially in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan (by 6.3% and 8.8%, respectively).Between 1991 and 1995, tertiary and vocational enrolment in Turkmenistan fell by 39%.The Kyrgyz Republic shows worsened upper secondary education enrolment.This decline was also owed to the decline in the quality of services, the introduction of user-fees and the spread of unemployment, with the resultant rise in poverty levels, have all contributed to declining enrolment and absenteeism in schools (except in,).However, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and the Kyrgyz Republic show slightly worse outcomes than Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan as these countries in particular Uzbekistan, for, a countable budgetary expenditure policy.This variation may, in part, be explained by difficulties associated with data collection in the latter republics, as well as the more radical changes and speed of reforms in the case of the Kyrgyz Republic, less so in Kazakhstan, and the crises and civil disturbances in Tajikistan; vii The Russian Diaspora in Central Asia: Russian Compatriots and Moscow's Foreign Policy, The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization, Vol.14, No. 1,  2006, p. 51.viii In 1991 Tajikistan had 944 pre-school education facilities, which covered 14 500 children.However, in 2000 their number reduced down to 496 and according to official statistics, in 2006, their numbers declined further by 17 units in comparison to 2000.At the same time, number of children attending them dropped by 59% in 1991-2001, and in rural places decreased by 73%.In 2006, only 6.1% of total children attended these facilities.http://www.jica.go.jp/activities/issues/gender/pdf/08taj.pdf,p. 6. ix Jane Falkingham, Woman and Gender Relations in Tajikistan, 2000, pp. 55-56.http://www.adb.org/Documents/Books/Country_briefing_papers/Women_in_Tajikistan/women_in_tajikistan.pdf,p. 7.
x An Asian Development Bank (ADB) study (2000), reports that one third of the children aged 7-15 in Tajikistan were absent from school for two or more weeks during a single academic year.The same study showed a clear relationship between household income and the ability to pay for costs associated with education, such as textbooks and uniforms.Several studies (ADB, 2000; United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) & Ministry of public education (MOPE) of Uzbekistan, 2001;SC, 2002), suggested that children in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are increasingly used as family labor to supplement declining family incomes.According to the World Bank (WB) poverty assessment of Tajikistan (WB, 2000), other reasons for school non-attendance were attributed to the perceived irrelevance of education, lack of clothing, the high direct costs associated with education, frequent illnesses, insufficient school supplies, and the absence of teachers.http://www.soros.org/initiatives/esp/articles_publications/publications/development_20020401/education_development.pdfp.5 x The situation cultivated that figure which was self explanatory to pinpoint the shabby reduction of teacher's education in Tajikistan, as between 1991-1997, teachers fell from 99, 122 to 91, 285; Shailaja Fennell, Madeleine Arnot, Gender Education and equality in a global context: conceptual frameworks and policy perspectives, USA, 2007, p. 89.xii In Tajikistan, it is estimated that 4000 qualified school personnel migrated to other countries during the civil conflict and many others have left their jobs in search of better-paid jobs elsewhere in the country.In Kyrgyzstan, official figures point to 2580 vacancies in schools, although the actual numbers are estimated as double that number.In all countries, there are severe shortages of qualified teachers of the official state language (Kyrgyz, Tajik and Uzbek), as well as teachers in subjects which have acquired new commercial value, such as English, Computer Science and Economics; Jane Falkingham, Women and Gender relations in Tajikistan, USA, 2008, p. 39.  xiii With the peace agreement of 1997, the Government of Tajikistan embarked on the difficult path of rebuilding the country's economy and its different sectors, including the education sector.Since 2000, the Government of Tajikistan has undertaken a series of measures designed to reform the education system.In addition, public sector reform initiatives have also introduced changes in the education sector.In 2002, the government adopted the National Concept for Education in Tajikistan.In 2004, a new law on education was passed by the Parliament and the national plan for implementing reforms in the education system for 2004-2009 was adopted.The reform plan introduced, among other measures, changes in the structure of management and financing in schools in five pilot districts, including per capita financing.This reform was aimed at modernizing the country's education system, improving the quality of education and training of personnel, achieving educational gender equality, and realizing the goals of xix The introduction of the subject "Human Rights" into the curriculum of secondary, vocational, and some higher educational institutions (in the Department of "Lawyer-Teacher" of the State Pedagogical University) has played an important role in the development of civic education within the state system of education.Curriculum and programs on this subject were developed and approved in 2004.From the beginning of the 2006 academic year, the subject of "Human Rights" was introduced in 10th and 11th grades of secondary schools as a replacement to the compulsory subject "Social Science.In an attempt to shift away from Soviet uniformity, education systems in Central Asia became increasingly diverse throughout the 1990s.http://www.akdn.org/publications/civil_society_tajikistan_edu_civic.pdf,p.16.
xx The Human Rights Information and Documentation Center with the support of United Nations Office for Peace Building in Tajikistan along with United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Central Asia, and United Nations Programme for Development has finished the development of the textbook on human rights for 10th grade.Specialists from the Ministry of Education of Tajikistan, lawyers, university professors (Tajik State National University), and school teachers participated in the development of the book.The textbook "Human Rights" for 10th grade was discussed at a roundtable held on the 2nd of February 2007 where specialists from the Ministry of Education, the textbook authors -professors of the Tajik State National University, employees of the Tajik Academy of Sciences, and secondary school teachers recommended the textbook for use.The textbook authors are: T.N.Ziyoev, Z. Iskandarov, G. Lutfanov, M. A. Mahmudov, Sh.M. Mengliev, N. Murodova, E.M. Pavlenko, R. Salikhova, R. Sh.Sativoldiev, U. Z.

Table 1 .
Soviet system school education.International Qualifications Assessment Service Government of Alberta www.immigration.alberta.ca/iqas. Source:

Table 2 .
Soviet system of higher education

Table 3 .
Shows a lot of efforts taken for the dissemination of the Tajik education

Table 4 .
A comparison of the education system in 1991 and 2007 at all levels of education in Tajikistan.
Education for All, the Millennium Development Goals, and the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper International education guide for the assessment of education from the former USSR and Russian Federation, www.immigration.alberta.ca/iqas,p.2.xiv Education Financial Planning in Asia, Implementing Medium-Term Expenditure Frameworks:TajikistanUNESCOBangkok,2010.http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0018/001877/187723e.pdf p.5. xv Development of Civic Education in Tajikistan: Problems and Prospects, http://www.akdn.org/publications/civil_society_tajikistan_edu_civic.pdf,p.13.xviIn 2003 NGOs like Avrora, Nilofar, Save the Children, Society of Deaf People took front to improve educational standard in Tajikistan which of course bore fruits; OECD-Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, Reviews of National Policies for Education Reviews of National Policies for Education: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic and Tajikistan, 2009, OECD-Organization for EconomicCo-operation and Development, 2010, pp.231, 233.xviiAccording to the BOP statistics ( IMF 2006) the largest financial Assistance in 2004-5 from ADB and World Bank through loans and grants ($ 25million and $12.1) world Bank -US$ 307.17 million and US$ 100.61 million from the ADB.Ministry of finance 2006, in 2007 Tajikistan received 18.4 million as grants from the World Bank for the implementation of the FTI to ensure accelerating progress toward the MGD of the universal primary education; /www.un.org/esa/socdev/unyin/documents/wpaysubmissions/tadjikistan.p df, p.6.
xviii http:/ Tohirov and A.G. Khalikov.Currently in secondary schools civic education is taught within compulsory subjects like "Principles of State and Law" for 9th grade pupils and "Human Rights" for 10th-11th grade pupils.Various textbooks published in //www.akdn.org/publications/civil_society_tajikistan_edu_civic.p df.p.11.xxi Ben Eklof, Larry Eugene Holmes, Vera Kaplan, Educational reform in post-Soviet Russia: legacies and prospects, 2005, USA, p. 37. xxii Irving Epstein, Leslie Encyclopedia of Children's Issue worldwide, Volume