Kyrgyz Step by Step Program Awarded Funding for "Equal Access to Education"

May 2008

ISSA's Kyrgyz Council Member, Public Foundation "Education Initiatives Support" (FEIS), was recently awarded funding to implement the project, "Equal Access to Education" from Liechtensteinischer Entwicklugs - Dienst. The goal of the project is to improve the quality of education in Uzbek-language schools in the Fergana Valley region of Kyrgyzstan.

Ethnic Uzbeks make up about 14% of the population of Kyrgyzstan. This population is largely concentrated Fergana Valley, in the south of the country.  This region has long struggled, due to a host of issues which negatively influence quality of life and education, including border disputes, ethnic enclaves and conflict areas, lack of land and water resources, poverty and social tension, the threat of radical Islam, and drug trafficking. This project will serve 180,000 children in 240 Uzbek-language schools which suffer from a lack of professional personnel, textbooks, and manuals in Uzbek, and whose methodological techniques are quickly becoming outdated.

The Step by Step Program (SBS), in cooperation with School Improvement (SI), Reading and Writing for Critical Thinking (RWCT), and Health Culture programs under the umbrella of the Public Foundation "Education Initiatives Support" as an implementing agency, will help to effectively upgrade the quality of primary education for this vulnerable segment of the population through pre-service and in-service training, mentor support, and provision of methodological libraries for teachers, trainers, parents, and all interested parties of communities.

For more information about the project, please contact Tatiana Motokhina at tana1906@mail.ru.

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