Kyrgyzstan Ends Uzbek-Language University Entrance Exams

By Chingiz Toloev. As graduates prep for the crucial tests, those from the country’s largest minority wonder if there is any point in taking them.
Nasiba, a 17-year-old Uzbek student at a secondary school in Osh, Kyrgyzstan, wanted to study law after graduation this spring. Now it looks as though she will not attend college at all, thanks to a government decision preventing her and several thousand other ethnic Uzbeks from taking national university entrance exams in their mother tongue. Until this year members of Kyrgyzstan’s largest minority, the Uzbeks, could take the exams in Kyrgyz, Russian, or Uzbek. But in September the government announced that this year’s exams on 20-21 May would be given only in Kyrgyz and Russian. More...