On 8 February, students of the OSCE Academy MA Programmes came together with the purpose to establish the "Public Coalition for Education and Science.", a new association dedicated to propagating education. “In Kyrgyz society we are facing educational inequality between cities and periphery and the weakness and disorganization of intellectuals, or those who believe in power of education. Running into those problems during my school-age and after, caused me to initiate a new association to work on those issues and find solutions,”- said Abdyrakhman Sulaimanov, student of the MA Programme in Politics and Security.
The four main goals of the newly emerging association are:
1) to promote educational values among the people;
2) to mitigate the educational inequality between the cities and periphery;
3) to protect the rights of academics, teachers, and students;
4) to unite all the representatives of education and science throughout the country.
The meeting also served as a networking event and gathered representatives of the American University of Central Asia, the Diplomatic Academy under the MFA KR, the National University of Kyrgyzstan, Manas University, Soros-Kyrgyzstan, UNDP, as well as other universities and education centres in Bishkek. The meeting was also attended by high-level representatives of the business and civil society in Bishkek, such as the President of “Kyrgyz Concept” Company Mr Emil Umetaliev, Executive Director of the "The Roza Otunbayeva Initiative" Foundation Ms Dogdurkul Kendirbaeva, and the Chairperson of the “Open Education Coalition” Mr Chorobek Saadanbek.