Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) - A meeting was held at the Ministry of Public Education of the Republic of Uzbekistan with representatives of UNICEF and an international expert on education.

During the meeting, the Minister of Public Education Sherzod Shermatov noted that, on the initiative of the President, enormous work is being carried out to reform the school system, the Concept of Development of the Public Education System of the Republic of Uzbekistan until 2030 was approved.

The Republic has set itself a global task - to enter the top thirty countries of the world with the best quality education according to PISA criteria by 2030.

The experience of countries leading in the quality of education shows that the creation of high-quality school standards is a prerequisite for achieving high results.

On the basis of state general educational standards, textbooks and teaching materials, teaching methods and systems for assessing student achievement, teacher development and training programs are being developed. Also, the standards make it possible to link all of the above components of the education system and make them work smoothly to achieve the best results and the general goals of the country's socio-economic development, expectations and aspirations of society with schooling.

To date, the Ministry of Public Education has developed an initial draft of national standards for general secondary education. Leading domestic and foreign experts are involved in the development of standards.

Matthew Goldie-Scott, international expert of UNICEF, is in Tashkent from October 21 to 25, 2019 to discuss draft standards and exchange views on international best practices.

It is expected that the draft standards for general secondary education will be submitted for public consultation by the end of this year. The next steps will be the training of authors of educational programs for the development of curricula and the content of education for each class in each subject and the preparation of teaching materials in 2020.

The developed curricula and programs according to the new standards will be tested in secondary schools in the academic year 2021–2022 and will be implemented in stages over the next five years.

The expert praised the ongoing reforms of school education in Uzbekistan and was glad that he could participate in the development of such an important document: “The National Standard for General Secondary Education of the Republic of Uzbekistan”.