The National Program for Personnel Training and the Law 'On Education' (1997): Uzbekistan's education reform

After independence, Uzbekistan set about radically reforming its education system, inherited from the Soviet era. The legal foundation of that reform was laid in 1997. Below, the main documents of the 1997 education reform, its structure and its later fate are set out with exact dates and facts, on the basis of sources.

29 August 1997: two key documents

On 29 August 1997, the Oliy Majlis of Uzbekistan adopted two major documents on the same day: the Law 'On Education' (No. 464-I) and the National Program for Personnel Training (No. 463-I). These documents formed the foundation of the country's new, independent education policy and declared education a priority area of social development.

A system of continuous education

The National Program introduced a model of continuous education. Under it, the system comprised seven components: pre-school education; general secondary education; secondary specialized and vocational education; higher education; post-graduate education; retraining and skills improvement; and out-of-school education.

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Nine plus three: a 12-year education

The central innovation of the reform was to extend compulsory education to 12 years: a three-year secondary specialized, vocational stage was added on top of nine years of general secondary schooling. To this end, after the 9th grade pupils would continue their studies at one of two new types of institution — an academic lyceum or a vocational college. Higher education, in turn, was converted to a two-tier system of bachelor's and master's degrees.

The stages of the program

The National Program for Personnel Training was designed to be implemented in stages. The first stage (1997–2001) was aimed at building the legal and material foundation of the new continuous-education system, including the establishment of academic lyceums and vocational colleges. In subsequent stages the system was fully introduced and refined; from 2004 to 2009 a separate state program for the development of general secondary education was carried out.

Constitutional basis

The reform rested on the Constitution of Uzbekistan: Article 41 guaranteed free general secondary education under state supervision, while the Law 'On Education' established equal rights to education regardless of sex, language, age, race, ethnicity, creed or social origin.

Its later fate

The 1997 system remained the basis of Uzbekistan's education for more than twenty years. Later, from 2017, the compulsory three-year college stage was reconsidered: study at vocational colleges ceased to be mandatory, and general secondary education reverted to an 11-year school system. On 23 September 2020, a new edition of the Law 'On Education' (No. LRU-637) was adopted, replacing the 1997 law.