Khujand University: reality and dreams

Umeda Gafarova (Deputy Rektor of Khujand State University)

Email: umeda-gafari@rambler.ru

 

ABSTRACT:

Khujand State University is one of the oldest educational institutions of Tajikistan. It trains specialists for diversity brunches of life of the country. It is situated in one of the most ancient cities in the North of Tajikistan.

The structure of the University consist from the 20 faculties. The university trains teachers of Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Mathematics, Geography, History, Russian language and literature, English, Arabic, German and Farsi. We also train specialists in Cybernetics, Journalism, Economics, Telecommunication, Radio electronics, etc.

Both, research and practical work are slowly developing within the crucial period of transition from the old and odious politicized methods of teaching of soviet period into new, open, discursive learning of the modern world. That’s why special attention is paid for re-thinking the history of Arts of Central Asia in their inner dynamic, such as Philosophy, Aesthetics, Ethics, Culture Studies, Conflicts Resolution Studies, History, Religion, Archeology Sociology etc. The lack of new, contemporary thinking teachers, however, is a stumbling block of crucial changes in the educational system, as a whole.

There are many problems, which have to be solved in order to overcome the present stagnation. The main positive point, however, is the great wish for the real changes and development. Although the old and odious isolation of the national university system from the mainstream of the world university movement of the last century, is a stumbling block for the widening the horizons of vision, the huge number of the young generation gives energy, which comes from the bottom of the society. The generating idea is understanding that the nowadays problem, created from the very beginning of the structuralisation of the universities of Tajikistan, can be solved, if the solidarity of the modern educationalists will be created on the new quality. That solidarity could be helpful to solve a number of ‘smaller’ problems. They are: marginalization from the modern technology, in general, and the lack of experience in interactive technique in training specialists in all above-mentioned fields of education, including studies of foreign languages. That situation is deepened by localism and fundamentalism. These are the real ideological sources for the conflicts of different characters.

I think integration of the Khujand State University into interuniversity sphere of modern world and its real inner development could be obtained by the following conditions, interconnected with each other:

• Implementation of the new technology into all fields of knowledge;
• Legalization of the rights of students for knowledge and providing of equal rights for the students and professors;
• Modernizations of the classical heritage;
• Promotion and encourage of innovative methods of education;
• Creating own, independent relations with the world bank system;.
• Creation of the new, independent relations with the university system of Europe and Asia, developing mutual projects of research.

The University has a great potential for cooperation with the institutions, both actual and virtual. As a person, responsible for that type of activity, I am open to discuss these opportunities with the participants of the newly coming conference in Vienna, in December, this, 2007.