50 Afghan women to obtain higher education at Kazakh, Uzbek universities

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BRUSSELS. KAZINFORM On Tuesday, Brussels hosted a ceremonial event of the launch of an education programme for Afghan women at the Kazakh and Uzbek universities, Kazinform correspondent reports.

In July the European Union allocated 2mn euros for a joint project with the UN which will enable 50 young Afghan women to get higher education at the Kazakh and Uzbek universities.

Diplomats from Afghanistan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, representatives of the European Commission and UN, experts and journalists participated in the ceremony. Kazakhstani side was represented by Deputy Foreign Minister Roman Vassilenko.

«A unique programme has been presented today. For the first time, this format was initiated by First President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev in 2010 on training of 1,000 Afghan people to the amount of $50mn,» he explained.

«The programme turned out to be successful. 100% of the Afghan people returned homeland after the study; almost all of them were employed (75%). The European side expressed an interest in our experience and backed our idea,» Roman Vassilenko said.

Up to now, Kazakhstan has provided $80mn of financial assistance to Afghanistan. $3.5mn of this amount was spent on construction of healthcare and educational centers as well as on reconstruction of roads and bridges.

Satbayev University, Kazakh-British Technical University, Kazakh National Agro-Technical University and Almaty Management University were selected for training the Afghan students. The teaching process will be conducted in the English language.

As per the UNDP data, 11% of all adult women obtained at least secondary education and only 19.5% of them are employed. Among the men these indicators are as following: 37% and 87% respectively. In 2016-2017 more than half of Afghanistan’s population lived below the poverty line.

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