Teachers Surviving to Teach: Implications for Post-Soviet Education and Society in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan

Abstract

This chapter is based on an analysis of data gathered through two qualitative studies conducted by the authors in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, accompanied by our continuous involvement in, and reflections on, the transformation process in the region, as well as by our review of other studies of education and society done by international agencies and individual scholars (Humphrey, 2002; ICG, 2009; Keshavjee, 1998; Ries, 2002). The chapter presents a complex picture of teachers’ life and work in Central Asia. It examines how teachers are seeking various means for survival and coping with the multiple challenges they face in their everyday practices. In particular, we discuss the role of trade and trading in teachers’ lives, how and why they become traders, what effect it has on their lives and practices and what are the implications of this impoverishment and intensification for education and society in Central Asia.