On 17 September 2026, Dr Shairbek Juraev presented an analysis of political science and international relations teaching in Kyrgyzstan at the PoSIG Teacher Academy 2026, hosted by the University of Salzburg.
Held from 14 to 18 September under the theme “Internationalisation of Higher Education matters(?)”, the Teacher Academy ran alongside the annual meeting of the Erasmus political science network established by the Universities of Konstanz and Salzburg. PoSIG, the Joint MA in Political Science: Integration and Governance, grew out of cooperation that the University of Salzburg’s political science department built with universities in the Western Balkans, and has admitted students since 2017. The consortium expanded to Armenia and Georgia in 2024, and universities from Central Asia and the Southern Mediterranean take part in its activities as associated partners. Its annual Teacher Academy, first held in 2016, brings together lecturers and programme managers from Europe, the Western Balkans, the South Caucasus, Central Asia and the Middle East and North Africa.
Dr Juraev, Co-Founder and President of Crossroads Central Asia and a former Deputy Director of the OSCE Academy in Bishkek, took part through the Academy’s participation in the PoSIG network, with travel supported by an Erasmus+ KA171 mobility grant from the University of Salzburg.
His presentation traced the teaching of politics in Kyrgyzstan to three underlying conditions. First, Kyrgyzstan is a post-Soviet state whose public universities have changed less than the state itself. Curricula are still treated as plans to be delivered rather than designs open to debate and revision. Second, the country’s early opening to the outside world brought American, Turkish and Russian models of higher education, followed more recently by Chinese and Gulf-based initiatives. Each is coherent on its own terms, and they remain largely disconnected from one another. Third, unlike Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan is outside the European Higher Education Area. European influence therefore arrives through individual projects, partnerships and short-term mobility rather than through membership in a shared framework.
The consequences are visible in how students and staff behave. Students often choose departments by language of instruction and the international value of the degree more than by the substance of the programme. Heavy teaching loads at public universities leave little room for research, so courses transmit established knowledge rather than engage students in producing it, and researchers tend to pursue their work outside the university.
Some of the strongest political science teaching is concentrated in small, English-medium, externally supported programmes. The larger public universities, where most students study, remain largely untouched by this international engagement. Research capacity has shifted towards independent institutes, consultancies and international organisations. International funding, the presentation argued, has built individuals but not institutions capable of retaining them.
The presentation concluded with two proposals for European partners. Joint supervision is considerably easier to establish than joint degrees, which can take years to accredit when one partner is outside the European Higher Education Area. International programmes should also support the less visible work of curriculum development, including the months required to redesign a course. For Kyrgyz universities seeking to bring research into teaching, the main constraint is the teaching load rather than the mobility budget.