Speak No English

With their crackdown on advocacy groups and international media organizations in Uzbekistan, the authorities in Tashkent have effectively stemmed the teaching of English to much of the population. [Also in Russian.] by Paul Bartlett 29 June 2006 As organizations such as the BBC, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Internews, IREX, Freedom House, and the Open Society Institute have left the country, so have many opportunities for ordinary Uzbeks to learn and hear English. The private sector has stepped in with new classes, but at up to $5 per hour they’re difficult for all but a small percentage of Uzbeks (who make on average $45 per month) to afford.

The authorities seem reconciled to this consequence of their crackdown and have since reemphasized Russian instruction in schools. But learning English is associated with prosperity for many in the world, and the dwindling opportunities could have implications for the country’s future.

THWARTING REFORM

Since Uzbekistan became independent in 1991, international organizations such as the British Council, the U.S. Embassy’s public affairs section, and the Open Society Institute have played a major role in assisting reforms in the education sector in Uzbekistan. These reforms have often been implemented through the medium of English – via language training or subject-specific teacher training, or the development of educational materials fostering civil society.

But fostering civil society is not high on the agenda these days, and these groups have become inconvenient for the regime, leaving the authorities in a dichotomous position. On the one hand, they recognize the importance of English for modernization and letting the country play an active role in an increasingly globalized world; on the other hand, they do not want people to be exposed to some of the values that English-teaching groups have traditionally promoted, such as democracy, freedom of speech, and respect for human rights.

These attempts by the Uzbek authorities to curb the activities of organizations working in the education sphere are likely to keep many people from learning English to an effective level. In Uzbekistan English ranks a distant third behind Uzbek, the state language, and Russian, which has no official status but has recently been experiencing a revival in Uzbek schools, as reported in TOL by Mansur Gulomov.

With increased time being given over to Russian, teaching hours need to be taken away from other foreign languages. Increasingly, to learn English to an effective level means hiring private tutors or studying abroad, options beyond the means of the vast majority of people. The result is likely to be a privileged elite with a good working level of English who will have access to the best jobs and the fruits of international trade while the mass of the population will be isolated and cut off from such chances and from the prosperity that knowledge of English can bring.

Color revolutions in Georgia, Ukraine, and, uncomfortably close to home, Kyrgyzstan, have unnerved the regime in Tashkent and led it to increase steps to suppress organizations dedicated to promoting democracy, freedom of speech, and respect for human rights. The Uzbek authorities have pursued a policy that has led to them becoming increasingly isolated from the West. The final rupture came in July 2005, when the Uzbeks served the Americans with six months’ notice to vacate the airbase at Khanabad, which they did on 23 November.

Harassment of NGOs in Uzbekistan has a longer history, dating to the spring of 2004, when the OSI became the first organization to fall foul of the Uzbek authorities. The official reason given for its closure was failure to submit the necessary paperwork for registration. In the lead-up to this ruling, the Uzbek authorities had claimed that educational materials funded by the OSI for Uzbek universities distorted “the essence and the content of socioeconomic, public, and political reforms conducted in Uzbekistan” and that these materials aimed to harm the reputation of the Uzbek government. Prior to being barred, the OSI had been the country’s largest private donor, providing $22 million in assistance since 1996.

The OSI had awarded a contract to Westminster International University in Tashkent in spring 2004 to provide English-language training to local NGO workers. The materials developed for the course would have been used by local English teachers to work with NGOs outside Tashkent, giving staff in this underfunded sector access to free English instruction. The project folded when the OSI was forced to shut down in April 2004.

Another casualty of the shutdown were plans like those of an Uzbek woman who received OSI funding to study in the United States for her master’s degree in English teaching. As part of the deal, the teacher, who wished to remain anonymous, was to work for the OSI for two years on ESL programs. She is now working for a private language school in Tashkent rather training her peers.

STRONG DEMAND

Despite the expulsion of international organizations, demand for learning English remains strong in Uzbekistan. One organization that did not want to be identified reported that the number of its students preparing for the International English Language Testing System exam, a qualification used for university entrance in a number of English-speaking countries, quadrupled, from 95 to 245 in the first quarter of this year. The number of candidates remains high as students compete for a diminishing number of overseas scholarships and places at Tashkent’s Westminster International University, an affiliate of Westminster University in London.

Into this picture of undiminished demand chasing limited supply has stepped Macmillan Publishers, a major publisher of books for English learners. The company opened a store in Tashkent in 2004 and recently launched its own language school. The school has managed to build up a cadre of students by undercutting its rivals’ prices.

It’s impossible to know how many fewer English-language learners there are in Uzbekistan compared with a year ago, but it’s certain the opportunities are much fewer. In the long term, however, these attempts to stifle English-speaking organizations whose views run contrary to the authoritarian Uzbek regime will hamper the country’s development. By clamping down on foreign NGOs, many of whom were offering valuable assistance in the sphere of education, and by isolating the mass of the population from learning English effectively, the Uzbek authorities are creating a situation where the country as a whole is becoming uncompetitive in the global marketplace.

Knowledge of English, as suggested last year by linguist David Graddol in the Guardian Weekly, is becoming “positioned as a generic learning skill, alongside basic literacy and maths.” By limiting access to learning English, the Uzbek authorities hope to stop the spread of ideas they describe as alien, such as democracy, freedom of speech, and respect for human rights. But at the same time they risk turning the country into an uncompetitive backwater with a workforce unable to partake in and benefit from the increasingly globalized world economy.