Education is particularly one of the most important parts of our life because it effects all aspects of our life and it is an important factor for a country’s sustainable development. The government has a crucial role in development of education. The other important actors in the process of development are international institutions, which have resources. In current situation the government will not be able to make big positive changes without the assistance of international institutions and visa versa.

All the difficulties, which is experiencing education in Tajikistan, are mainly caused by the Civil War. During the Soviet Union the system of education was set up in such a way that everybody had an access to it. There was a compulsory education in the country and every child had to go to school, it was the main duty of the children.

Prior to 1991, the level of educational attainment in the adult Tajikistani population was below the average for Soviet republics. Of the population over age twenty-five in 1989, some 16 percent had only primary schooling, 21 percent had incomplete secondary schooling, and 55 percent had completed a secondary education. Those statistics placed Tajikistan ninth among the fifteen Soviet republics.

Unfortunately, during the years of independence, our country has lost much of what had been achieved during the Soviet era in terms of education. This is confirmed by the lack of textbooks, qualified teachers, modern equipment and class-rooms. Another problem is a sharp decrease in attendance, especially among the girls.

Aid workers are sceptical of official claims of 98 percent literacy levels. The United Nations Development Programme put the average enrolment rate for all levels of education (ages six to 23) at 62.1 percent in 2002. There is now a 14 percent drop-out rate, according to a study carried out in 2001 by the United Nations Children’s Fund.

The Ministry of Education does not have enough resources for building new schools or publishing new books. Most of the students, especially in the rural areas are still using the textbooks which were published in 1980s. In this situation an external support is important, though it is also not a solution of the problem. The tiny resources that the Ministry of Education has is not the main problem, one of the main problems is that it does not have a clear strategy for development and the tiny resources that it has are not properly distributed.

The other and probably the most important problem is corruption. It is the main problem, not only for the Ministry of Education but also for international institutions which are trying to assist the country in improving the quality of education.

There are a lot different international organizations, which implement different educational projects. Millions of dollars were spent by these institutions in the last ten years and the result of their activity is not promising. This is not a mistake of international institutions, it is a mistake of the government because it can not get rid of corruption.

International institutions and the government have to implement vital projects together, and both sides admit it, but the former do not want to have tight relations with the later because of corruption. Here comes the problem, on one hand both sides need to work together, and on the other they can not, because one of the sides does not trust the other. Consequently, most of the projects are not successful or they have a short term success. When the international organizations allocate funds for any project they stand before a dilemma, either they give resources to local institutions, governmental or nongovernmental, and have a risk of losing most of the resources or they implement those projects on their own and have little success.

Recently there was a news, which stated that ADB Project Planned to Boost Quality Education for Poor in Tajikistan. According to this news, Asian Development Bank is going to ‘prepare a project to improve the quality and responsiveness of Tajikistan’s education system to meet the needs of a modern economy and supportive of poor, disadvantaged children - particularly girls and those with special needs - with the help of a technical assistance grant of $400,000. The assistance will be conducted over about six months to February 2007. The Government is contributing $71,000 in kind to the total cost of $471,000.’

The title of the article is very promising and one may think that finally the quality of education in Tajikistan is going to improve. However, as it was mentioned before, millions of dollars were spent for the development of education in the country in the last ten years and there was little success, and the amount of $471, 000 US is not going to change anything. ADB here has the same risk as other international institutions. It is a risk of spending resources without fully reaching the target groups.

The government of Tajikistan should think of how to battle corruption at least in such vital areas as education. It is clear that education in the country will not improve without the assistance of the government even if the external assistance will equal hundreds of millions of dollars.