What public good should higher education institutions deliver in Uzbekistan?
– In my life, for example, higher education has always had an unprecedented revolutionary role to play. The University of World Economy and Diplomacy gave me like-minded friends, a confidence in the possibility of achieving everything through academic excellence and in the critical importance of education. Graduate study afforded me new inspiration, enhanced my frame of mind, generated basic knowledge in international business. While eventually attending diverse business schools (Uzbek-Japanese Center, Skolkovo Business School, Independent Directors’ Association) I acquired new specialized knowledge and skills built on solid objectives and expectations.
Later on, having studied at courses like How Universities Managed and the Higher Education in the 21st Century, I began thinking over the functions of higher education institution in a contemporary society. By establishing TEAM University in 2020, we, a team of leading businesspeople in the country, aimed to realize our most advanced ideas in this project. The government’s resolution to set up a first business university, TEAM, proved rather worthwhile in the sense that it helped implement a novelty hitherto unthinkable in our country as an experiment. Thus, from initially an attendee I went on to become part of the process of understanding, as a co-founder of the university, of what I believe as vital practical issue, namely, how should universities have positive impact on our society. Therefore, we’ll try to discourse on this topic together.
“Universities and religious establishments live for hundreds of years”. I came across this phrase somewhere, some time ago. Then I stopped to think for a while: indeed, the companies we create and their products will live for 5-10 years; but if the company has operated for 25 years, it is a big event worth congratulating the founder and the team. If one thinks about it, the mission of a university is trans-generational. In 2005-2006, when I was studying for a graduate degree at St. Andrews University, preparations were in full swing for its jubilee anniversary. At that time, it was 592 years old, and in 8 years the institution was to celebrate its 600th anniversary date. When you understand that there are not one or two such universities in your country, you realize that their influence on people and industries is not limited by national or regional borders, they have a global scope. Such long-term planning, realizing the scope of the mission and vision creates a sense of responsibility. In my opinion, higher education institutions in Uzbekistan should think about their mission and what role they are to play in society.
Co-founders of TEAM UNIVERSITY
Zafar Hashimov
Founder and CEO of Korzinka.uz
Hikmat Abdurahmanov
Co-founder of HM Partners Group
Muzaffar Kasimov
Co-founder of HM Partners Group
Anvar Irchayev
Founder of Orient Capital Management, Chairman of the Board of Universalbank
Umid Hakimov
Chairman of the Board of Asia Alliance Bank
Alisher Jabbarov
Founder of Alinfarm
Maksud Abdusamadov
Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Kapitalbank
Arsen Dlyanchev
Founder and CEO of Unique Present Media Holding
Khurshid Roziyev
Founder of Dodo Pizza trademark, Kimberly-Clark Uzbekistan
Laziz Adhamov
Founder of TOR-Contact and Dalatek
Murat Mahkamov
Founder of IT company FOM GROUP LLC
Founder of ArzonApteka pharmaceutical company
Metaphorically speaking, higher education institutions are not ‘ivory towers’, that is, they cannot exist and function separately from society, industry, and our everyday life. However, that was the case in the darkest days of Uzbekistan’s higher education system. I remember that when I went to my first job in the early 2000s, my first supervisor said, “That’s enough, you just forget everything taught at the university, we will learn it all again in practice.” Any student of any higher education institution in our country would have encountered the same challenge. Above all, it is painful to hear these words after four years of hard work at the uni. Second, it clearly shows how employers used to evaluate the quality of our national higher education in the early 2000s.
In my opinion, the situation did not change for the better for a long time period after that. Uzbek universities were barely competitive in the market, neither had academic freedom, nor any change in curricula, and hardly covered 10% of school graduates (that is, only one out of ten applicants was able to enroll at a higher education institution). They had their faculty with low enthusiasm, archaic management style and no independence in decision-making. Thus, they were lagging behind the realities of life for more than twenty years, not to mention how much more they were left behind their foreign counterparts.
In the 2020s, we witnessed a turning point in the field, when the government realized that it cannot address this task by itself [advance the higher education system – trans.], nor solve the problems the education sector faced. And thus the field saw a liberalization wave. In the last 5 years, more than 100 different higher education institutions have emerged in Uzbekistan. Some of them chose the path of quality education, preferring cooperation with more experienced foreign colleagues. Another part followed the path of mass education, that is, by admitting a large number of students, they sought to meet the demand for diplomas, open and standardized education. That has been the case especially in the regions of the country. In my view, it is a natural situation to observe following a protracted period of bans, closedness to competition.
Based on the experience of more than a dozen nations, including our neighbors, I can suggest that the educational model and evolution of universities will undergo a process of natural selection for about ten years, characterized by enlargement and professionalization of the market. Only those who entered the market with a serious and long-term vision will survive. Operating a university truly is very capital intensive, requiring significant investment in campus, information resources and, crucially, brains. As long as the university aims to act as a hub for knowledge and talents in the 21st century, when ChatGPT writes essays and theses on behalf of students, attention should be paid to the fact that students and faculty work in small groups, and to promote critical thinking abilities of young people. Good universities direct all their efforts to developing soft skills, forming like-minded people, performing the function of social lifts, preparing the young generation for the big independent life.
In conclusion, I would like to stress that I see the role of universities in our life on a more serious scale – in the field of research, innovation, in spearheading entrepreneurial thought, and critically, in raising a competitive generation. Another practical example is the University of Edinburgh, where my daughter is lucky enough to study. It is alma mater for 18 Nobel Prize winners, along with Charles Darwin, founder of the theory of evolution, Adam Smith, a great economist and author of the Wealth of Nations. Such a university can serve as a model for higher education institutions in our country, so that they strive to become hub of knowledge and improve the society we live.
