Authorities in Uzbekistan are calling on all the country’s students studying in neighboring Central Asian states to come back and continue their studies at schools in their homeland.
Officially it is an invitation, but some are not so sure they have a choice.
In any case, it certainly created a frenzy of activity at universities in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan as Uzbek students scrambled to obtain the required documents and transcripts -- and faculty pondered the sudden loss of thousands from their student bodies.
RFE/RL's Media-Relations Manager Muhammad Tahir moderated a discussion on this midterm mayhem and what might be the reasons for it.
For this topic, we had Alisher Sidikov, the director of RFE/RL’s Uzbek Service, known locally as Ozodlik, and Torokul Doorov, director of RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service, known locally as Azattyq. And I, of course, joined the discussion.
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