President Outlines Critical Tasks to Boost Youth’s Spiritual Development and Meaningfully Organize Their Leisure

Today, President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev has chaired a videoconference meeting to discuss measures to enhance attention to youth issues, their extensive involvement in culture, arts and sports, develop skills in using information technologies, promote reading among the growing generation and ensure women’s employment.

Thirty percent of our country’s population is young people from 14 to 30 years old. Conditions have been created for them to attain education and professions. However, pressing is the issue of organization of meaningful leisure for youths. The higher the spirituality of young people, the stronger their immunity to alien phenomena and ideas.

The head of our state had earlier put forward five important initiatives to organize social, spiritual and educational works on the new system.

The first one envisages boosting the interest of young people in music, arts, literature, theater and other types of arts, serving to realize their talents.

The second track implies physical consolidation of young people, creation of conditions necessary for the exercise of their abilities in sports.

The third initiative deals with the effective use of computer technologies and the internet by the population and young people.

The fourth is the organization of systemic works to improve the spirituality of young people and promote the reading of books.

The fifth is to ensure women’s employment.

These initiatives were voiced during the President’s trip to the Syrdarya region. Within a short span of time ever since, large-scale efforts have been undertaken in this province. The central and municipal libraries of the region have been delivered 300 thousand copies of fiction. Schools of music and arts were provided with musical instruments, while sports facilities were supplied with equipment and accessories.

Works in this direction continued in the Namangan region where a Caravan of Enlightenment has been set up. 25 thousand copies of books, 80 kinds of sports equipment and musical instruments were delivered to the region.

These ideas have been welcomed by our people, especially by the youth, with great enthusiasm.

Participants of meeting today discussed issues of widespread introduction of this experience in all regions of the country.

It was noted that more than 800 cultural centers are operating in Uzbekistan today, 312 schools of music and arts cover as few as 130,000 boys and girls, and that most of these institutions are not sufficiently outfitted with textbooks, musical compilations, musical instruments and equipment.

The head of state instructed to scrutinize the financial and technical capacities and the degree of operation of cultural centers, schools of music and arts in the field, and improve their activities.

The ministries of culture and public education have been tasked to organize, in cooperation with hokimiyats, an additional 1.5 thousand hobby clubs in municipal and district cultural centers and secondary schools, building on the interests of the youth. It was noted that it is essential to set up artistic-amateur groups, youth theater studios, clubs in the cultural centers with the initiative of talented young people and sponsors.

Given the positive practice of attracting celebrated actors, musicians and writers to the districts to promote cultural works, instructions were given to spread this experience throughout the country. Thus, renowned artists will be assigned to the districts and cities as creative advisors. They will be responsible for the development of culture and art in the field, and local hokims will provide material and organizational support for these efforts. 

Special attention is paid to the enhancement of training with higher education in the field of music and arts.

The Ministries of Higher and Secondary Special Education and Public Education have been instructed to organize history lessons in museums, historical monuments, pilgrimage sites and theaters.

During the discussion of the issues of promoting physical culture and sports among young people, it was emphasized that more than 12,000 sports facilities operate in the country, yet the level of coverage of physical culture and mass sports for young people remains insufficient. The extent of equipment of general education schools with sports accessories is 56 percent on average, while it is 12 percent in the Surkhandarya region, 14 percent in Khorezm, and 15 percent in Karakalpakstan.

Measures were outlined at the meeting for the wide involvement of young people in physical culture and sports.

Deputy hokims of districts and towns on youth issues were instructed to study – together with specialists – the extent of interest of young people in sports and the level of equipment of sports facilities, to work out corresponding proposals, and the Cabinet of Ministers to determine the source of funding required for the implementation of proposals.

The need was noted for the construction of small gyms in remote villages using lightweight structures and sandwich panels, of pitches with artificial turf, and provision of entrepreneurs with land for sports facilities. Businesspeople who come forward with such an initiative will be allocated concessional loans under the program “Youth Is Our Future” by the National Bank for Foreign Economic Activity of Uzbekistan.

It was stressed that a good result would be secured by the appointment of well-known athletes who won international competitions as headmasters of sports schools in the field, as well as by the targeted training of athletes in special correspondence departments of universities. It was instrcuted to increase the number of youth sports schools.

At the videoconference meeting, special attention was also paid to protecting young people from the negative impact on the internet, teaching them how to effectively use information technologies.

The Ministry for the Development of Information Technologies and Communications was ordered to arrange training centers in digital technologies, based on international best practices, in all cities and regional centers. These centers will offer free courses on e-commerce and programming, doing business in the field of information technologies, and will assist start-up projects.

The poor level of internet access in schools has been criticized. The Ministries of Public Education and for the Development of Information Technologies and Communications have been instructed to elaborate an action plan to provide computer classes in all schools with modern technology and high-speed internet access until 2021.

The President underscored the need to support the initiatives of entrepreneurs in the organization of computer gaming centers, in which tests, quizzes, developing strategies and other useful programs serving to expand the knowledge and horizons of children and youth.

The awakening of the love for book from the younger age, the formation of independent thinking and broad outlook are the key to achieving success in life. However, in many villages and communities there are no necessary conditions for reading. Information resource centers organized in place of former libraries have not been able to cope with the tasks assigned to them.

In this regard, in the framework of the new initiative it is planned to deliver additional quantities of books to the places, taking into account the needs of young people.

The head of state instructed the responsible ministries and associations to publish, within the framework of the Caravan of Enlightenment project, artistic, cognitive, social literature books in the amount of not less than 1 million copies and deliver to the Republic of Karakalpakstan and all regions of the country.

It was said at the session that local hokimiyats should organize one exemplary bookstore in each town and district center. The Agency of Information and Mass Communications was tasked to deploy mobile book shelters in all towns and districts, and provide library services to rural residents through the “bibliobuses”.

The meeting participants also discussed issues in women’s employment.

In 2019-2020, a total of 195 garment-knitting enterprises with the use of sandwich panels are planned to be built in all districts. For these industries areas were selected in terms of density of population and the size of labor resources. It is expected that as a result of the establishment of enterprises more than 24 thousand permanent jobs will be created for women.

The President noted that there are much more women who want to work than the jobs created, and pointed to the need to arrange work in two shifts and produce in-demand products at enterprises.

For the broad implementation of these five initiatives, all regions were assigned responsible leaders. Thus, the chairman of the Jokargy Kenes of the Republic of Karakalpakstan, hokims of the city of Tashkent, regions, districts and towns, the leadership of the Nuroniy, Mahalla funds, of the Women’s Committee, the Youth Union will be personally responsible for the execution of the tasks.

Reports of relevant responsible persons were heard at the meeting on the issues considered.