Anastasia Pogorelskaya, Olga Kobzeva. Foreign universities in Uzbekistan and the tasks for Uzbek-Russian educational cooperation

About seven years ago Uzbekistan switched to educational policy aimed at increasing tertiary education accessibility, level of internationalization and quality improvement [Troitsky, Yun, 2021] and therefore opened its higher education to foreign universities. Thanks to the growing purchasing power of the population [The World Bank, 2021a], the export of higher education services to Uzbekistan is becoming more attractive. Due to the country’s population growth [The World Bank, 2021b], the demand for higher education there is guaranteed for at least 15-20 years.

Thus, getting the share in the market of higher education services in Uzbekistan becomes a strategic decision. And it is especially important for Russian universities, since in Russia, on the contrary, there is a decrease in the number of students [Form N VPO-1, 2022]. Therefore, Russian universities have intensified their efforts to strengthen their positions in Uzbekistan. Thus, it is necessary for Russian universities to assess the current situation at the higher education market in Uzbekistan and their key competitors...