DUSHANBE, September 20, Asia-Plus — More than 5000 students have graduated from teachers’ training institutions in Tajikistan this year, and 4,780 of them have been sent to work with schools; however, little more than 50 percent of them now work as teachers, Javharsho Himmatshoyev, a chief specialist with the personnel department of the Ministry of Education (MoE), said in an interview with Asia-Plus.  

He reminded that general schools in Tajikistan are experiencing an acute shortages of teachers of the Russian and English languages, chemistry, physics, geography, information technology, mathematics and history.     

“Tajikistan now has 6,500 teaching vacancies,” the MoE official said. 

According to him, Khatlon has 1,746 teaching vacancies, Sughd 1,753, Gorno Badakhshan 602, and districts subordinate to the center 108.  The Tajik capital no has 383 teaching vacancies. 

The ministry is trying to provide schools in the provinces with sufficient teachers.  The minister has signed an order under which beginning on October 1, the fifth-year students at the teachers’ training institutes will be sent to the provinces to work with local schools.  Local authorities will provide them with housing and pay them salaries for their work, according to him.  A total number of students to be sent to the provinces to work with local schools will be known by September 25.  

MoE officials say that graduates from teachers’ training institutes refusing to work with schools will be obliged to pay off money spent on their training.  It concerns only graduates who studied in the federally funded groups, according to them.  This demand is provided for by government’s resolution of April 4, 1996 about training of specialists with higher and secondary special education on a contractual basis.