The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has decided to grant US$ 19.5 million to support the Uzbekistan public education reforms.

"The funds will be used to transform school management, teacher training, teaching, development and use of educational materials (traditional and ICT), which will lead to an improvement in pupils performance," the Ministry of Public Education (MPE) said.

It is also planned to develop methods and strategies to increase transparency and accountability in schools, to improve school administration and service delivery.

The MPE intends to spend part of the funds to implement the IT Nation initiative, which will help enhance pupils' IT knowledge and skills. Within its framework it is planned to integrate modern information technologies into the educational process.

"One of the problems in the field of education is the lack of tools for objective assessment of children's knowledge and skills. With the support of USAID, the Early Grade Reading and Mathematics Assessment (EGRA and EGMA) will be conducted in secondary schools in Uzbekistan. These studies will help identify gaps in children's education and take measures to their elimination ", - told in the ministry.

In addition, as part of the project, USAID will assist the MPE in implementing the English Speaking Nation project, aimed at improving the teaching of English in schools through modern teaching methods.

This grant is one of the first projects implemented within the framework of the Memorandum of Understanding between the Ministry of Public Education of Uzbekistan and the US government on cooperation to support the Uzbekistan education sector.

Earlier, Uzbekistan Minister for Public Education Sherzod Shermatov, and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Alice Wells and Deputy Assistant Administrator of USAID for Central and South Asia, Javier Piedra signed a Memorandum of Understanding in Tashkent Wednesday on February 27, 2019 in Tashkent.