President Emomali Rahmon is expected to pay an official visit to Russia from April 17-18. Rahmon and Vladimir Putin will discuss construction of five Russian-language schools in Tajikistan.
A number of new government-to-government cooperation agreements will be signed between Tajikistan and the Russian Federation during Rahmon’s official visit to Moscow, an official source in the Tajik government told Asia-Plus in an interview.
Thus, the two sides are expected to sign a government-to-government agreement on construction of five Russian-language schools in various regions of Tajikistan. The construction of the schools will be financed by the Russian government.
Dushanbe and Moscow will also sign agreements on cooperation in the fields of trade, investment, security, culture and cooperation between the regions of the two countries, the source said.
According to him, the Tajik side also intends to discuss with Russian officials the issue of granting migration amnesty to Tajik nationals deported from Russia for violation of the rules of stay in the Russian Federation.
Russia is expected to provide six billion rubles within the next few years for construction of five Russian-language schools in Tajikistan.
Speaking at a roundtable “State and Prospects of Social and Humanitarian Cooperation between Russia and Tajikistan” in Moscow, the first deputy chairperson of the Federation Council (Russia’s upper house of parliament) Committee on Science, Education and Culture, Mrs. Liliya Gumerova, noted in October last year that those schools will be provided with all necessary equipment and the state-of-the-art technologies.
According to her, 1.2 billion rubles will be provided for construction and equipping of each of those five schools. Each of these schools will accommodate 1,200 pupils.
Recall, Russia at the start of last academic year sent 30 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 education sector in Tajikistan has been in decline after collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Many Tajik nationals reportedly described the effort to bring over Russian teachers as a much-needed remedy.
On April 5, 2018, 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.
