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5 Facts about Education in Turkmenistan

After the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, Turkmenistan was granted independence for the first time in over 100 years.

According to data gathered by the Soviet government officials in 1991, at that time Turkmenistan’s population was nearly completely literate. Since its independence from the Soviet Union, education in Turkmenistan has significantly changed. Here are five facts about education in Turkmenistan.

1. Reform

President Berdimuhammedov, appointed in February 2007, encouraged hope for the people of Turkmenistan that reforms in education would occur. In addition, in 2007, Turkmenistan underwent an over 500 percent increase in their gross domestic product (GDP) due to increased oil and gas prices. Since 2007, the Turkmenistan government has made a number of educational reforms, such as raising the amount of compulsory education, the proliferation of “model schools” and the creation of curriculum guides.

2. Attendance

In Turkmenistan, there is a primary school attendance rate of 97 percent. However, there is only an 85 percent attendance rate for secondary schools.

3. Equality

Despite the relatively high percentage of attendance, education in Turkmenistan is not equal for all citizens. While there is near gender equality, there is significantly higher attendance in urban instead of rural areas. Enrollment in primary education is at 67 percent for Turkmenistan’s capital city, Ashgahat, but only 11 percent for Lebap, a rural region.

4. Completion

Only 0.1 percent of students who attend primary school in Turkmenistan drop out, while 0.8 percent of students in Turkmenistan repeat a grade. However, 99.8 percent of students who attend, finish primary school.

5. Infrastructure

A challenge that education in Turkmenistan is facing is the quality of its educational buildings. Due to the lack of investments in education prior to 2007, many school buildings are deteriorating. Around 15 percent of schools have structural problems that make them too dangerous to use for classes.

While there is a greater wealth access to education in Turkmenistan than in surrounding countries, there is still a necessity for further educational reforms in Turkmenistan.

— Lily Tyson

Sources: BBC, CountryStudies, UNICEF
Photo: Flickr

5 Facts about Education in Uzbekistan

Education in Uzbekistan

Uzbekistan, at 30 million, is the most populous country in Central Asia. Uzbekistan was once a part of the Soviet Union, but since the Soviet Union’s dissolution, Uzbekistan’s economy has been challenged by the sudden transition to independence. Due to the economic and social challenges caused by this transition, access to education in Uzbekistan has been difficult. Here are five facts about education in Uzbekistan:

1. The population of Uzbekistan is 26.5 million. Twelve percent of Uzbekistan’s Gross Domestic Product is spent on education. This is the highest spending on education in Central Asia.

2. In 2006, a study focusing on education in Uzbekistan was given to a sample of students and it was discovered that only 30 percent were considered proficient in mathematics and 30 percent proficient in literacy.

3. Education in Uzbekistan is compulsory between the ages of 6 and 18. The average enrollment rate in Uzbekistan’s primary schools is 97 percent while the rate of transition from primary to secondary school is at 100 percent.

4. There is no gender gap in Uzbekistan’s schools — boys and girls are offered equal access to education in Uzbekistan.

5. Despite the social and economic turmoil in Uzbekistan following the collapse of the Soviet Union, while re-building the country, the Uzbekistan government has made educational reforms a priority.

In the future, Uzbekistan is seeking to further improve the education it offers its citizens. Planned reforms for education in Uzbekistan include providing greater access to education for all children in Uzbekistan, improving  school evaluations and working conditions for teachers, instating a better program to keep track of which children are and are not enrolled in school and developing “second chance schooling” for students who drop out but then return.

 — Lily Tyson

Sources: Euroeducation, The Guardian, UNICEF
Photo: Flickr

Abundant Natural Gas Reducing Poverty in Turkmenistan

Turkmenistan_natural_gas_desert
Of all of the former Soviet republics in Central Asia, Turkmenistan has the smallest population and is made up of mostly just desert regions. The extremely strict isolation enacted by dictator Saparmurat Niyazov ended around the time of his death, but the government still remains autocratic. According to Turkmenistan officials, the country is estimated to have the world’s fifth largest natural gas reserves, but despite the wealth that comes from these reserves, there is still a large number of people in the country living in poverty.

The country came into an age of isolation after achieving independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, which has only recently shown signs of improvement. The Democratic Party of Turkmenistan is the only political party in the country and was led by the former president Saparmurat Niyazov until his death in 2006. After making himself president for life, he spent much of the country’s money on daunting projects while heavily cutting social welfare at the same time. Kurbanguly Berdymuhamedov took control of Turkmenistan after the former president’s death and has not fulfilled many of his promises toward political reform in the country.

Turkmenistan was considered the poorest of all of the Soviet-occupied territories and in 1989, 45 percent of the population lived below the national poverty line. The country generally has a limited infrastructure with an insufficient workforce, poor communication and signaling equipment, and a general lack of paved roads. The roads are not regularly maintained or developed, and only 30 percent of households have a telephone. The medical facilities in Turkmenistan are minimal and hard to come by as well, with very low standards compared to Western countries. Military and police presence is very common in public areas because of crime rates and corruption in the country. These authorities often monitor and apprehend people that are perceived as a military or security threat, for example, the people that are simply taking pictures of government buildings.

The economy is underdeveloped because foreign investors have been steering clear of the country for years due to rising conflicts with the legal status of offshore oil and the lack of export routes. The country has been struggling to fully benefit from their massive gas and oil deposits as a result. Each year Turkmenistan produces nearly 70 billion cubic meters of natural gas and about two-thirds of that goes to the Russian gas monopoly, Gazprom. Fortunately, in 2006, a protracted dispute between Russia and Turkmenistan ended with Gazprom agreeing to a 54 percent increase in pay to Turkmenistan. Since then, vast gas pipelines have been opened to China and Iran in efforts to break Russia’s hold on its natural gas experts. There have also been efforts to take part in a project with the European Union called the Nabucco Pipeline, which would provide an alternative to the current Russian gas supplies to Europe. Though over 40 percent of developing countries in Central Asia are experiencing the same hardships, Turkmenistan has a brighter future because of its greater fiscal capacity and great natural gas reserves.

-Kenneth W. Kliesner

Photo: Daily Mail
Sources: Asia News, BBC, Mahara

History of Poverty: The Ukrainian Famine

Ukraine, “The Bread Basket of Europe,” a 233,000 square mile expanse of fertile steppe stretching from Poland and Romania in the West to Russia in the East.  Much like in Turkey, her southern neighbor across the Black Sea, Ukrainian culture combines elements of the Asiatic and the European into a Eurasian entity that is undoubtedly one of the most distinct in the world.  Even during the tyrannical rule of the Soviet Union, Ukraine retained the unique agricultural identity that defined it, consistently expressing an anti-regime, nationalistic fervor while making up for over a quarter of the USSR’s grain production.

Ukraine’s significance as the agricultural gold mine of Eastern Europe was the cornerstone of it’s economy for centuries, making it the most valuable territory to the former Soviet Union.  The strategic importance of Ukraine as a center of agricultural output is most notably evidenced by the Ukrainian Famine of 1932-33, also known as the Holodomor (Голодомор). This great tragedy was deliberately created by Joseph Stalin to quell a strain of Ukrainian nationalism that had started to become active in the late 1920‘s.  The main thrust behind the designed famine, however, was Stalin’s desire to accelerate the industrialization of the Soviet empire by utilizing Ukraine’s enormous agrarian resources.

The famine was a result of the forced collectivization of Ukrainian farms by the government in which virtually all of the food produced on the collectives was seized by Soviet authorities and sold on the international market to raise the national income, leaving the Ukrainian locals with nothing to eat.  This collectivization was against the will of the Ukrainian “kulak” class of wealthy farmers who opposed Soviet rule and ran private farms for personal profit.  In devising this artificial famine, Stalin decimated the population of Ukraine and, through murder and banishment, eliminated the Kulak class, along with any rebellious sentiment represented by the Kulaks.

What Stalin did to the Ukrainians has been described by many historians as mass genocide.  Between 1932 and 1933, over seven million Ukrainians died of starvation.  Ukrainian famine survivor Miron Dolot, who was a child in Ukraine during the forced collectivization, recalls grisly scenes in which desperate villagers resorted to cannibalism and the consumption of rats to stay alive.   Stalin had reduced the Ukrainians to a condition of destitution that was beyond comprehension.  To the heartless dictator,  fast industrialization was the end goal, and any amount of life that stood in his way was expendable.

The Holodomor is a stain on the history of the former Soviet Union, and was only recently recognized by the Russian government.  To this day, the Ukrainian Famine is one of the only instances in history in which a dictator calculatedly reduced a contingent of his people to starvation and abject poverty.

– Josh Forgét

Sources: Execution by Hunger, Reflections on a Ravaged Century, CIA World Factbook
Photo: United Human Rights

Rural Poverty in Armenia

Rural Poverty in Armenia
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Armenia descended into poverty. Industries that were previously operated by the Soviet state, including agriculture, were discontinued, creating massive unemployment in this region of the Southern Caucasus. Today, nearly 50% of the population lives below the poverty line. Many of those affected by poverty either reside in rural areas along the nation’s borders or in isolated mountain villages.

In a 2012 article written for the Guardian, reporter Sigrid Rausing portrays a bleak portrait of Armenia. Rausing describes a polluted mountain landscape devastated by the fall of the communist regime. She says, “Every village we drove through was half abandoned – the falling-down houses haphazardly mended with metal sheets or planks of wood. Whole families move if they can, otherwise, women and children remain while the men join the migrant labor force in Russia, sending meagre remittances home.”

Over 30% of households in Armenia are headed by single women whose partners have traveled to other countries for work. The end of collectivized agriculture destroyed efficient food production because Armenian farmers were ill-equipped and undereducated in the business of farming. In addition to this, the rocky Armenian soil was a thorn in the side of former Soviet agricultural laborers who were not used to dealing with such challenges without the help of Soviet officials. It was this combination of factors that forced agricultural workers into migrant labor, leaving the women of rural Armenia to fend for themselves.

The situation in Armenia requires international attention. Armenia was assisted by several Western powers in the early 1990s when the threat of famine loomed over the fledgling nation, however, development in Armenia could be the chance to improve food production, reduce migration, and lift this struggling country out of poverty permanently.

– Josh Forgét

Source: Rural Poverty Portal,The Guardian
Photo: Care Armenia

Top 5 Photos of Atrocity

In May of 2012, the Daily Mail posted an article regarding author Matthew White’s book, “The Great Big Book of Horrible Things” which ranks the worst atrocities in history. The rank lists World War II as number one, the regime of Genghis Khan as number two, Mao Zedong’s regime as number three, British India famines as number four, and the fall of the Ming Dynasty as number five. The Soviet Union’s Joseph Stalin ranked as number seven, and the Atlantic slave trade as number ten. (The list of all ten is available on Daily Mail.) On another source, the worst atrocities are ranked based on death tolls marking WWII as number one, the regime of China’s Mao Zedong as number two, Soviet Union’s Stalin regime as number three, WWI as number four, and the Russian Civil War as number five.

For the purpose of objectivity, it is important to note that all atrocities are significant and that these calculations seem mostly based on numerical and statistical measures. The presented list below will rank the top five photos of atrocity based on a combination of measures: timeliness (1945-present), death tolls, and global-scale emotional significance.

1) WWII led to approximately 55 million deaths (including the Holocaust)

Hiroshima

(the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki)

2) (1949-1987) During China’s Mao Zedong regime, approximately 40 million lives were lost

ChinaFamine

(Famine during the Great Leap Forward)

3) (1975-1979) Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge/Pol Pot regime caused approximately between 1.7 to 2 million deaths.

PolPotKhmerRouge

4) (1994) Rwanda’s genocide led to approximately 800,000 deaths

RwandanGenocide

5) (1980-1989) The Soviet-Afghani War which led to approximately 1, 500,000 deaths

SovietAfghanWar

– Leen Abdallah

Sources: The Hemoclysm, Religious Tolerance
Photos: Daily Mail, Google, Google, Google, Google