More than 50 Russian teachers are expected to work with Russian-language schools in Tajikistan beginning on September 1 this year, teaching a variety of subjects, including math, chemistry, biology and computer science.
“29 Russian teachers arrived in Tajikistan at the start of the 2017-2018 academic year. They have worked with schools in Dushanbe, Khorog, the capital of the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region (GBAO), Khatlon, Sughd and districts subordinate to the center. Of them, only thee have returned to Russia while the remaining 26 teachers have remained in Tajikistan for one more year,” Mikhail Vozhdayev, the head of Russian Center of Sconce and Culture {Rossotrudnichestvo) in Tajikistan, told Asia-Plus in an interview.
According to him, 26 another Russian teachers will join them in a new academic year. “They will work with schools not only in Dushanbe and Khujand but also in other regions of the country,” said Vozhdayev. “Thus, three of them will work with Presidential Lyceum in Khorog.”
Recall, Russia at the start of the 2017-2018 academic year sent 29 teachers to secondary schools in Tajikistan. Teachers from the Russian regions of Kostroma, Kemerovo, Bashkortostan, Daghestan, and Tatarstan have arrived in Tajikistan to teach subjects such as mathematics, physics, biology, chemistry, computer science, Russian, and others at secondary schools where teaching is conducted in Russian.
The government-sponsored Russian World Foundation, which promotes the Russian language and culture abroad, noted in August last year that Russia has provided Tajikistan with 20 tons of textbooks on various subjects by September 1, 2017.
Authorities in Russia make no secret that assistance exercises like these are potentially valuable tools in the country’s soft power armory, similar in some ways to the U.S.-funded Peace Corps volunteer program, although the scale for now is much more modest.
Last August, as the participants of the pilot project mustered in Moscow, Valentina Matviyenko, the chair of Russia’s upper house (Federation Council) of parliament reportedly told them that “your work is in effect that of goodwill ambassadors, envoys of Russian knowledge and culture.”
On April 5 this year, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said during a meeting in Moscow with his Tajik counterpart, Sirojiddin Muhriddin, that there are plans to build another five Russian-language schools in Tajikistan, but he provided no timeframe.
The education sector in Tajikistan has been in decline after collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and many Tajik nationals have described the effort to bring over Russian teachers as a much-needed remedy.
