DUSHANBE, January 15, Asia-Plus — “Schools in Tajikistan are experiencing an acute shortage of textbooks,” Education Minister Abdujabbor Rahmonov told journalists in Dushanbe on January 13.
According to him, under the education development project supported by the World Bank, investors have provided enough funds. “However, authors compiling the textbooks are delaying the completion of work,” said the minister, “That is the main problem today is compiling the textbooks.”
Rahmonov noted that he will hold a special meeting with authors of textbooks on this subject on January 18. He expressed hope that the textbooks on the main subjects will have been available by April.
On the publication of textbooks on Arabic script (Alifboi Niyogon), the minister said that this subject is studied at schools in Tajikistan from fourth to seventh forms. The textbook for the seventh-form pupils was already published in Iran, according to him. “With support of Iran’s Education Minister the work on publication of the textbooks for other forms has also been completed in Tehran,” said Rahmonov, “The textbooks having circulation of a 1200,000 copies each will be delivered to Dushanbe within the next few days.”
Asked about provision of non-Tajik-language schools and classes with textbooks, the minister said that textbooks for those schools are translated from Tajik and are distributed to the schools as they are published. “We have to date distributed textbooks on 18 subjects to the Uzbek-language schools, on seven subjects to the Kyrgyz-language schools and on three subjects to the Turkmen-language schools,” Abdujabbor Rahmonov said, noting that work on other textbooks for those schools is still under way.
The minister also appreciated Russian Education Ministry’s support provided to the country’s education sector. “The Russian ministry has sent 136 items of textbooks to Tajikistan for the Russian-language schools here,” Rahmonov said.
“The ministry has projected a special curriculum for schools with studying in non-Tajik languages,” said Abdujabbor Rahmonov “The textbooks on the Tajik language, history of the Tajik people and on geography of Tajikistan for these schools are prepared by our authors.”
