DUSHANBE, January 12, Asia-Plus — A fair and sound nationality policy is conducted in Tajikistan, Zuhro Madaminjonova, head of the department for political and ethnopolitical process of the Center for Strategic Studies, remarked at a news conference in Dushanbe on January 11.
According to her, all ethnic groups living in Tajikistan have equal opportunities. “At present 137 various nationalities and ethnic groups live in Tajikistan, and all ethnic minorities have real right and opportunities to study in their native languages,” said Ms. Madaminjonova, “Besides Tajik-language schools, we also have schools teaching in the Russian, Uzbek, Kyrgyz and Turkmen languages.”
She added that there were some problems, solution of which depended not only on Tajikistan. “Thus there are Uzbek-language groups at some Tajik teachers’ training institutions,” said Madaminjonova, “But if ethnic Uzbeks from Tajikistan want to study any other disciplines at higher educational institutions in Uzbekistan they will face some problems; for example, Uzbekistan now uses Latin script for the Uzbek language.” Meanwhile, all textbooks and other educational for Uzbek groups at Tajik higher educational institutions as well as Uzbek-language newspapers are published in Tajikistan in Cyrillic script.
