The University of Central Asia (UCA), spread across three campuses along the Silk Route, participated in this year’s Jaipur Literature Festival that took place on January 19-23.
According to UCA’s website, the main objective of the festival was to discuss the role of Science, the Liberal Arts, and higher education in modern nation-building.
Dr. Matt T. Reed, CEO of the Aga Khan Foundation UK representing UCA in Jaipur, reportedly joined a panel on January 21 to debate the topic ‘Building a Country: Science or the Liberal Arts?’
UCA is a bold partnership between the governments of the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and the Aga Khan Development Network to establish a new, comprehensive university for Central Asia, with campuses in each country. UCA has a unique approach to learning that combines a broad-based liberal arts and sciences education to build critical thinking, analytic and technical skills and an experiential education to give students practical opportunities to apply what they learn to real-world problems.
A core curriculum exposes all students to modes of thought and methods of inquiry in the Liberal arts, Social Sciences and Sciences. It includes teaching of ethics across the curriculum to support the moral reasoning that students need to become responsible, civic-minded citizens.
By offering a world-class education in traditional Science and Technology disciplines as well as the Liberal Arts, UCA’s aim is produce the next generation of Central Asia’s leaders with the skills and creative thinking needed to respond to regional and global challenges and opportunities. Ultimately, its graduates will contribute significantly to the future prosperity of the wider Central Asian region.
In September 2016, UCA’s first campus opened in Naryn, Kyrgyzstan, with its second campus scheduled to open in Khorog, Tajikistan in 2017, followed thereafter by Tekeli, Kazakhstan.
The campuses, which each lie 150 miles from the border of China, are deliberately located on the Silk Route, a historic trade and transportation route that facilitated the global exchange of goods, cultures and ideas. Just as the Silk Route brought learning and prosperity to Central Asia, UCA aims to catalyze an intellectual and economic transformation in the region, especially for its remote and marginalized mountain communities.
UCA’s initial investment in the region reportedly amounts to some US$285 million with a projected economic impact of over US$750 million.
With this injection of financial capital, development of local human resources and investment in future leaders, UCA aims to breathe new life and energy into the region and sets an important milestone in the rejuvenation of the ancient Silk Route.
UCA was founded in the year 2000. The Presidents of Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, and His Highness the Aga Khan signed an International Treaty and Charter to establish this secular, private, not-for-profit University. The treaty was ratified by the respective parliaments and registered with the United Nations. The Presidents of the three host countries are Patrons of UCA, and His Highness the Aga Khan is the Chancellor.
The Jaipur Literature Festival is an annual literary festival, which takes place in the Indian city of Jaipur each January. It was founded in 2006, and from 2008 has been produced by Teamwork Arts.
