By Anna Cristina D’Addio, GEM Report
This is the story of Uzbekistan and how, in less than a decade, it transformed its early childhood education system from one of the most underdeveloped in the region to a model that now outperforms some upper-middle income countries. Behind its transformation lies legislative ambition, public and private investment, and a fleet of buses winding through remote mountain villages.
The 2026 GEM Report includes Uzbekistan’s story among thirty-five case studies chosen to illustrate a central argument: that educational progress is context-specific, that no single policy is sufficient on its own, and that what works is rarely universal
Its data story
Uzbekistan was chosen to feature as a case study in the 2026 GEM Report because of the steep climb it achieved in growing participation rates one year before primary education from 28% in 2016 to 84% in 2024. Extended across the full preschool age group of 3 to 6-year-olds, the net enrolment rate climbed from 20% in 2016 to 69% in 2025. Uzbekistan now exceeds not only the average for its own lower-middle-income country grouping (77%) but also the average for upper-middle-income countries (82%), placing it broadly in line with neighbouring Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
What led to this progress?
To understand the present, you have to examine the past.
In 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed leaving Uzbekistan with an early childhood education system in serious disrepair. Enrolment is estimated to have fallen from above 70% to below 40% in the years that followed, while the number of kindergartens declined by an estimated 45% between 1999 and 2019. Teachers went without retraining, government funding fell short, and access in rural areas became particularly precarious.
In 2012, only 23% of children aged 3 to 6 attended preschool. Plans at that time were modest: a government strategy aimed to raise that share to 32% by 2016/17. Yet what followed was something considerably more ambitious. Preschool participation reached 84% in 2024.
Legislative foundations and a new Ministry
A Presidential Decree issued in late 2016, titled “Measures Aimed at Further Improvement of the Pre-School Education System in 2017 to 2021”, marked the beginning of a concerted national effort. In 2017 alone, eleven distinct preschool policies were introduced, among them the establishment of a dedicated Ministry of Preschool Education to centralise management and coordination across the country.
Additional legal foundations were put in place. In 2019, a Law on Preschool Education guaranteed every child one year of preschool before primary school entry. Regulations defined clear standards for facilities, teacher training and budgets, and assigned specific responsibilities to central and regional authorities. In 2018, free one-year school preparatory groups were piloted in select regions, enrolling over 11,000 children. By 2020, these groups had been fully rolled out nationally.
The country’s 2022 to 2026 Development Strategy of the New Uzbekistan formalized further targets: pre-primary coverage of 3 to 6-year-olds was to rise from 67 per cent to at least 80 per cent, with full access for 6-year-olds by 2024/25. In February 2026, a ministerial decision made one year of preschool attendance compulsory.
Visit Uzbekistan’s country profile on laws and policies related to SDG 4.
Mobilising private and private investment
A significant driver of expansion was the deliberate mobilisation of private providers. In 2018, Presidential Resolution 3651 introduced a framework for public-private partnerships, offering incentives including free land, buildings and subsidies to encourage private entities to set up preschools, particularly in urban areas. Family-based non-state preschools were also established to serve disadvantaged children, with reduced parental payments guaranteed for a minimum of three years.
Between 2018 and 2022, approximately USD 400 million in subsidies were granted to non-governmental preschools under these partnerships. The subsidy rate varied by geography, ranging from 30 per cent in the capital Tashkent to 75 per cent in remote and marginalised areas. In 2022, over 1,600 agreements created 172,000 new places, supported by preferential commercial loans at an annual interest rate of just 1 per cent over 15-year terms.
The impact on private sector participation has been substantial. According to UIS data, the percentage of pre-primary students enrolled in private institutions rose from 2% in 2016 to 41% in 2024. By that year, there were 27,162 non-state providers operating alongside 6,780 state preschools, together serving approximately 2.4 million children.
Public spending rose at the same time. In 2024, the government allocated the equivalent of USD 270 million to public preschools, part of a broader education budget that also supports schools and universities. International partnerships supplemented resources: the National Partnership Compact for 2023 to 2026 channels multilateral support into pre-primary expansion and quality improvements.
Addressing inequality
Deliberate steps were also taken to address disparities across geography and income. As this figure shows, the gap between Tashkent city and other regions in pre-primary enrolment has been effectively eliminated, though a 20-percentage-point difference remains between the regions with the highest and lowest participation rates.
Children in rural areas were helped by the development of mobile kindergartens for remote communities, known as aqlvoy (“wise”) buses, equipped with educational materials, toys, toilets and screens for digital content.
“It wasn’t economically feasible to build traditional preschools in rural areas. We have villages in the mountains where you cannot build anything. There are only three, five, or ten children in a village. That’s why we decided to develop alternative models to reach them, including kindergartens on wheels. The maintenance costs for these mobile kindergartens weren’t as high in terms of funding. It was much easier to give access simultaneously to several villages because the buses work in shifts.
Right now we have more than 142 mobile buses working in two shifts. More than 11,000 children are currently covered across more than 640 locations that the buses travel to every day. All the villages have their own playgrounds where the buses can stop and let the children receive education both inside the bus and through outside activities. Rather than traveling far away to city centres to get education, the mobile groups come directly to their villages.
For the first time in Uzbekistan’s history, we recently participated in PISA research, which showed that children who had preschool education performed significantly better than children who didn’t attend. We also conducted research with the World Bank, which demonstrated that children with preschool education had better results in mathematics and science.”
Azimjon Abdulkhaev, Head of the International Relations Department, Ministry of Education
Income-related disparities persist but are being actively addressed. In 2021/22, the gap in participation between children from the richest and poorest income quintiles was 28 percentage points among 3 to 4-year-olds. To counteract this, all preschools are required to reserve subsidised seats for households earning less than 1.5 times the minimum wage.
Children with disabilities have also gained greater access through specialised preschools and rehabilitation centres known as Imkon (Opportunity) and Umid (Hope). These facilities serve children aged 2 to 7, with 91 per cent attending free of cost. Inclusive early education has also been extended through community-based programmes, Sunday schools and short-stay groups.
And now?
On the back of its positive progress, Uzbekistan has been at the forefront of international developments in early childhood education, including hosting the UNESCO World Conference on Early Childhood Care and Education in 2022. The country has just signed an agreement to open a Category 2 UNESCO Centre for pre-school education in Uzbekistan, among whose objectives are to ‘promote best practices’ and ‘foster regional cooperation, strengthen international collaboration, and advance modern approaches in early childhood education.’
Achieving the target of 80% enrolment for 3 to 6-year-olds will require continued investment in family preschools and alternative delivery models in the most remote areas. The income participation gap has not been closed. And as the system grows, sustaining educational quality across an increasingly diverse set of providers will be an ongoing task.
Yet what is clear from Uzbekistan’s story is that rapid, large-scale transformation in early childhood education is achievable within a short timeframe when political commitment, legislative clarity, private sector engagement and innovative delivery models work in concert.
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