Vocational education and training for woman farmers in Kyrgyzstan: a case study of an innovative education programme

Abstract

This article outlines briefly the changing nature of agriculture in Kyrgyzstan, including post‐Soviet era market reforms and land allocation. Women carry a major part of the load for economic sustainability of the family livelihood, and so need opportunities to generate income and develop new roles for themselves in a context of social and economic change. Farming provides women with growing economic and livelihood opportunities, but the existing national vocational education and training (VET) system does not address learning needs of women adequately. The government has been open, however, to initiatives that seek to promote alternative, innovative approaches to VET, especially those which may enhance possibilities for women. A group of rural VET schools, supported by the Agricultural and Rural Vocational Education Project of the Swiss non‐governmental organisation Helvetas, has sought to develop a highly innovative, effective and cost‐efficient approach to vocational education for woman farmers. The article explains the project’s approach, and the process of developing this new form of VET in Kyrgyzstan. It highlights a number of achievements, challenges and lessons learned to date, which include the importance of offering a specialised curriculum for woman farmers, a high success rate for women in their student performance and completion, and issues relating to the ability of women students to apply their knowledge and skills in agriculture on leaving the school. The article ends with some conclusions on the value of this approach both within the Kyrgyz context and more widely.