TSPC News

AUCA TSPC has developed and implemented an educational course on migration

May 17, 2017

American University of Central Asia (AUCA) was one of the first universities in Kyrgyzstan that developed and launched a migration training course for its students entitled "Migration and Development". The two-year pilot course at AUCA proved its effectiveness.

In 2017 it is planned, in agreement with the Ministry of Education and Science of the Kyrgyz Republic, to offer this course for reading in other higher educational institutions of the republic - not only in Bishkek, but also in the regions.

It was launched in 2015/2016 academic year as a pilot course. It is not a required course, but an elective one. It had 16 people enrolled for it. The course caused great interest among university students, and in the second year of its piloting, in the 2016/2017 school year, 25 students have registered for it. The students were not only from Kyrgyzstan, but also from the USA, Switzerland, France, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan.

The course was developed by the employees of Tian Shan Policy Center (TSPC) of AUCA in cooperation with Emil Nasritdinov and Nurgul Ukueva, the teachers from Anthropology and Economics departments at AUCA.

"The training course is considered to be valid if 10 students are registered for it. This number is considered to be optimal for group sessions. This year 25 people enrolled in our course, and this figure number indicates a great interest in it from students. It is also convenient because it is interdisciplinary - it affects migration from different points of view: legal, anthropological (social) and as an economic phenomenon. So, students from different departments are involved into the course - economists, anthropologists, sociologists, lawyers. Some of the students have experience working as volunteers in international organizations, such as the International Organization for Migration, and are familiar with the topic not by hearsay" said Tatiana Zlobina, an employee of TSPC, co-author and teacher of "Migration and Development" course, lawyer.

For the first time the course was presented to public at the end of 2016 at an international conference in Bishkek devoted to the labor market research of the Russian Federation for 2015-2016 towards  labor migrants from Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

TSPC presented the concept of the migration training course for other universities of the Kyrgyz Republic, and also shared the experience of its successful implementation at AUCA. Syllabus aroused interest and was highly appraised by the teachers of several Bishkek universities and by international organizations.

<< go to news list