US will provide a $50 mln. grant to support the education reform in Uzbekistan

On September 28, the United States of America and Uzbekistan have signed the Development Objective Assistance Agreement (DOAG) under which the American side will provide up to $50 mln. to support the education reform in Uzbekistan  over the course of the next five years.
The document was signed by Sherzod Shermatov, Minister of Public Education of Uzbekistan, Alan Meltzer, Charge d'Affaires ad Interim of the US, and Julie Southfield, USAID Central Asia Regional Deputy Mission Director.
This is the first comprehensive bilateral agreement between the governments of the US and Uzbekistan on providing the development grant to support progress in the sphere of education. The document provides for the first tranche in the amount of $19.5 mln.
The actions funded under the agreement will be taken in close coordination with the Government of Uzbekistan to improve learning outcomes in reading and math in primary school, to use information technologies and to teach English.
As part of the project the Ministry of Public Education will get a scientifically grounded strategy to implement the IT-Nation Initiative aimed at improving students' knowledge and skills in the field of IT. There are plans to integrate state-of-the-art information technologies into the learning process.
One of education problems in Uzbekistan is lack of tools for objective assessment of children's knowledge and skills. USAID will support the studies of reading and math skills in lower grades (EGRA и EGMA) of comprehensive schools. These studies will help identify the training gaps and take measures to eliminate them. USAID will allocate additional $ 1.5 mln. for these purposes.
USAID will also support the Ministry of Public Education in implementing the English Speaking Nation project aimed at improving teaching English in schools through the introduction of state-of-the-art teaching methods. It will allocate $5 mln. for the implementation of this project.
The project will also support the Concept of Development of the Public Education System of the Republic of Uzbekistan until 2030 adopted in May.