Universities of Kyrgyzstan are Poor Copy of Humboldt's Model

Abstract

After seeing the changes that were made in the early years of Kyrgyzstan’s independence, starting from the constitution changes and ending with policy changes in education there is enough evidence that shows this shift from the higher education being completely dependent from the government and becoming more dependent on tuition fees and enjoying some form of academic freedom. Logically it might seem normal for the universities to become completely private and not depend at all from the government. However, it is not has been the case within twenty five years of independence. Rather, the government maintained some form patronage over the state run universities, and some were renamed under a title “presidential” or “national”, indicating their value for the government. Moreover, the state enjoys the right to obligate private universities or co-owned universities like the Kyrgyz-Slavic one to teach such subjects: Kyrgyz language, Kyrgyz History, Manas Studies and in addition to that it requires the students pass the state exam on history of Kyrgyzstan. There might be many ways to explain the reason why we have such situation, such as control over the universities means security for the government, the university administrations trying to hold on their status quo, impact of the west and developed countries were not effective enough to cover the university sphere, and influence of international organizations to promote free education idea and keep developing states responsible for providing it in all levels, at least the primary ones. All of these reasons can have its own role, however the recent work of Bill Readings, an Associate Professor in Comparative Literature at the Universite de Montreal explains clearly the situation of universities around the world in his book called “The University in Ruins” and it will be argued that his work can be also applied into the context of both independent and soviet Kyrgyzstan with consideration of different actors trying to pursue their interests.