DUSHANBE, July 14, 2008, Asia-Plus — Tajikistan is experiencing an acute shortage of skilled personnel for penitentiary facilities, Deputy Justice Minister, Ms. Gulchehra Sharipova, said in an interview with Asia-Plus.
According to her, candidates are now competitively selected for study at the Academy within Kazakhstan’s Penal System Committee. “The will study in Kazakhstan under an memorandum of understanding (MoU) on expansion of cooperation between the justice bodies of the two countries and raising professionalism of the justice system officers that was signed between Tajikistan and Kazakhstan in February this year,” the deputy minister said.
Kazakhstan has allotted Tajikistan a quota of five students per year, and Tajik students will study at the Academy free of charge.
Tajikistan it self does not have a proper educational basis for raising professionalism of the penitentiary personnel. “In the Soviet time, they had been trained in Chimkent (Kazakhstan), Ryazan (Russia) and other cities, you know,” said Ms. Sharipova, “We have chosen Kazakhstan because we have good contacts with this country.”
According to the penal system directorate within the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), 14 penitentiary facilities, including one women’s penal colony and six pretrial detention facilities, currently function in Tajikistan.
