Uzbekistan is a key partner of Belarus in Central Asia. Relations between the countries are rapidly developing in numerous areas, including education. Within the framework of this partnership Polotsk State University and Tashkent Financial Institute cooperate closely.
The universities established a joint PSU-TFI faculty, signed the agreement on providing joint Bachelor’s degree programmes in “Accounting, Analysis and Audit” and “Finance and Credit” (a student receives the diplomas of both universities) and on providing joint Master’s degree programmes. Besides, a plan for promoting cooperation between TFI and PSU was approved.
In the context of economic and political instability, it is becoming clear that the universities and science will become the new transformation drivers. Professor Ulugbek Azizov, Rector of Tashkent Financial Institute talked to a journalist of the newspaper “Golos Uzbekistana” (Uzbekistan’s Voice) about the new challenges and the necessity and importance of changes.
Newspaper “Golos Uzbekistana” (Uzbekistan’s Voice).
Analysts at a great number of global financial institutions believe that the world will experience the effects of a severe economic crisis in 2019–2020. The cyclical economy development and the situation on the stock and commodity markets indicate this. Besides, a continuing political instability also plays its negative role. Forecasts about the global economy recession appear with a consistent sequence in the world media.
Various versions of the global economy recession are being set. These warning signs were noticed after the analysis of the economic indicators of the major players in the world economy: China, the USA, Germany and Great Britain. In particular, Germany and China experienced a decline in GDP and the profitability of state shares decreased in the USA and Great Britain. According to the IMF Managing Director’s view, the global economy risks returning to the era of the Great Depression, which lasted from 1929 to 1933. One of the signs of a recession of that time was a drop in prices in the stock market.
The process of recession itself causes specific negative financial and economic consequences. If the recession during the Great Depression led to a tremendous disaster, then its modern manifestation, which is observed in many economies of the world, has a different and more complex nature.
There are some uncertainties left regarding the causes of the recession at the present stage of economic development. It seems that there are unresolved issues, gaps that do not give a clear answer to the prevailing phenomena in the theory of economics, in particular, in determining the recession process and its correlation with other economic (in this case, the stock market) and pandemic (with the Chinese coronavirus) realities. Even the IMF, when assessing the decline in the global economy, uses a non-specified term “recession” not paying attention to the existing economic and non-economic risks.
At the same time, the largest US companies included in the S&P500 are increasing their revenues, which can be considered an indicator of a stable development. There are some other compelling arguments supporting this point.
Therefore, we can conclude that the process of economic decline is not yet a recession, but a much more complex phenomenon. Both scientists and economists of Uzbekistan have the opportunity for a more rigorous research of the recession process and related, but not authentic phenomena that sometimes occur not only on a national but also on a global scale. A fair question arises: what is being done in Uzbekistan to prevent possible negative consequences of the predicted recession processes, or what preventive measures are being taken to solve this urgent problem?
In terms of socio-economic changes that are taking place in our country, life-changing documents are adopted at the highest State level aimed at economic growth accelerating and at the social sphere developing. One of these documents is Oliy Majlis’, the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan, Address that defines strategic goals and objectives for the medium term.
The programme report reflects the fundamental principles of social development and economic growth in our country. Much attention is paid to social protection, in particular, provision of housing to the vulnerable part of the population. Buying a house for each person and each family is acquiring a small motherland, a kind of social protection of the family hearth. Providing the shelter for those in need is not only a State view of the problem, but also the personal attitude of our country leader towards it. He proves this when he says: “Most of all, I want every family in our country to have their own house, their own apartment.” These words are being realized with cruising speed. Around 2.5 thousand social and infrastructure facilities were taken into use in a short period of time.
In this regard, it is necessary to note that in the Address there are the issues related to salaries, pensions, scholarships and allowances, which will increase ahead of inflation. There will be less paperwork to ensure social benefits. Responsible bodies will ask for a minimum of documents for the established legal procedures implementation.
One more fundamental point of the Address of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan to the country's parliament is, in our opinion, that the Head of State is creating a fundamentally new policy in the field of science, which will reveal our scientists’ intellectual potential.
In the digital era, science has to become the real driver of economic growth. Science helps build the future of the nation. Not so long ago, it was possible to talk about stagnation or even recession of national science, which hurt fundamental research. At present, the government supports researchers and ensures necessary conditions for conducting research. The state remains open and receptive to researchers. The government policy on science brings the science of Uzbekistan to the international level.
Particular attention is paid to the issues of essential cooperation with leading foreign research centres. This year, a large number of researchers and teachers are already going abroad with the help of El-Yurt Umidi Foundation to conduct research and take professional development courses.
There is no doubt that education determines the future of the nation. This is the main message when speaking about college graduates seeking to continue their studies and enter university. It is planned to increase the number of university graduates at least 25 percent in 2020 and up to 50-60 percent in the future. Since 2016, we registered a fivefold increase of personnel having Higher National Diploma. The result will be a sharp increase in the intellectual, economic and cultural potential of our society.
Besides, the President’s Address emphasizes the need to develop a National Qualifications System, which will allow us to train personnel under almost 9 thousand specialties that meet the requirements of the international labor market. All this will provide professional competence in all spheres of labor activity, including economy, and will lead to the fact that tomorrow our society will be in very good hands, the hands of professionals.
The introduction of e-learning is one of the main provisions of this strategic document as well. At present time, digitalisation is actively introduced into higher education system. Digitalisation gives an opportunity to develop both educational and scientific content related to innovation technologies. Firstly, this is the creation of digital textbooks, study guides and other electronic literature, as well as the transition of academic process into a digital format. Secondly, online learning will provide better results for both teachers and students. One has full confidence that the personnel trained with the help of digital technologies will become professionals of our economy in a highly competitive environment.
Digital competence is the essential requirement when teaching highly qualified personnel in HEIs. It is the foundation stone of the digital economy. It is not a secret that there is an acute problem of the lack of qualified personnel in the field of digitalisation. For this reason, there’s a need to provide the Digital School system and as its next stage the Digital Higher School system. These are exactly two stages of education the entire digital infrastructure of society and, in particular, of economy, is built at.
However, that’s nothing new when speaking about digitalization. The foundations of digitalization were laid by Al-Khwarizmi for the first time. Digitalization based on the blockchain technology is the same algorithm created by an outstanding scientist a thousand years ago, but in its more improved format.
Digital-based technological evolution is an inevitable process of economic development. The President’s Address emphasizes the need to develop the Digital Uzbekistan 2030 Programme. It highlights that in 2020 we must make a strategic shift in the development of digital economy. First of all, this is a new level of quality of economic relations based on the sales promotion, this is the next evolutionary stage in the natural development of the modern society.
Today the country provides necessary conditions for the digital technologies development. That is the result of successful cooperation between the state, the private sector, the civil society and the information technology community. Therefore, it is not surprising that our country can become one of the advanced countries in one year, when digitalization symbolizes not only economic success, but also the development of society as a whole.
Professor Ulugbek AZIZOV, Rector of Tashkent Financial Institute
Source: uzbekistonovozi.uz
Anna Nanos