Dear friends!

With all my heart I congratulate you – all those working in the field of education and enlightenment – on the Day of Teachers and Mentors and express the kindest of my wishes!

On this important festive day, with deep respect and gratitude do we bow low to you, our kind and caring teachers and mentors, instructors and professors, who gave us resourceful knowledge and prepared for independent life.

Indeed, the painstaking labor and true dedication of those who have devoted their entire lives to fostering the young generation deserve the highest praise.

When we speak of this, we involuntarily recall the words of the great enlightener Mahmudkhuja Behbudi: “Give your children the knowledge useful not only today, but also in the future.”

Undoubtedly, the main purpose of the education system, the very essence of the teacher’s mission is primarily to preparing for the future, bring up healthy and comprehensively advanced children who will live in an even more difficult time, when competition in the context of globalization will become especially acute.

With this in mind, reforms in the educational sector have come to be the most important for us, the priority direction of government policy.

Of late, extensive efforts have been undertaken to expand the network of preschool educational institutions, switch to 11-year school education, optimize the activities of academic lyceums and professional colleges, and develop the nongovernmental educational services sector.

Today, thanks to you, dear teachers and mentors, and owing to support from our people, the development of school education is turning into a nationwide task, a national movement.

Modern and innovative educational institutions of a completely new type serve this purpose, namely, the creative schools named after our outstanding poets and writers, specialized schools bearing the names of marvelous scientists with in-depth study of exact and natural sciences, “Temurbek schools”, as well as Presidential schools.

Particular significance is attached to the advancement of the system of general schools. In fact, over the past two years, 238 new schools have been built across the country. By the way, back in 2010-2016, as many as 99 schools had been closed due to insufficient attention to the field.

The budget allocations for the promotion of school education are growing. Thus, the funds assigned this year for these purposes have been 81 percent more than those in 2017.

In our country, measures are being taken to effectively value the work of teachers and mentors, boost their salaries and social status. 

Such attention to this vital sphere contributes to the qualitative improvement of the educational process in schools and the consolidation of the teaching staff.

In the process of comprehensive development of the education and enlightenment system, we attach immense importance to the perfection of preschool and higher education.

To this end, programs have been adopted for the advancement of preschool and higher education, on the basis of which fundamental reforms are being carried out.

In particular, over the past two years, 35 new higher education institutions, including 13 foreign ones, have been opened in Uzbekistan. Training has been organized in more than 100 new areas of undergraduate studies, 94 master’s degrees.

As a result of such measures, the level of youth enrollment in higher education has increased from 9 percent in 2016 to 20 percent at present. We set ourselves the task of bringing this figure to 25 percent in the near future.

Thanks to the opportunities created, our youth clearly demonstrate their knowledge and potential in various fields and glorify the native land around the world.

Shavkat Mirziyoyev, President of the Republic of Uzbekistan

material from the website presirent.uz