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Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the role of Islam has become more visible. Kyrgyzstan is divided ethnically between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks and geographically north and south. The state is deeply corrupt and does not deliver basic services, justice and law enforcement (ICG 2016). In the absence of reliable state and economic opportunities, growing numbers of citizens are taking recourse in religion. The 39 mosques of 1990 are more than 2,300 today. Islamic civil society organizations have more than doubled since 2000, by offering services that the state is unable to provide. These organizations represent different interpretations of Islam from tolerant to radical forms. The main concern is that because of the weakness and corruption of the state, poverty, unemployment, inadequate education, frustration with daily life for women, growing numbers of citizens are looking to Islam for political identity and a source of authority. In the study of International Crisis Group field research in 2015 religious’ leaders, teachers and security officials around the country highlighted the lack of educational opportunities, secular and religious, as a national concern and identified the decline in service provision, poor governance and ethnic tensions as the context in which radicalization occurs (ICG 2016, 3).

Western countries have been concerned about radical Islam and its influence to fill the ideological emptiness that the collapse of the Soviet Union created. Before 2014, and the establishment of Islamic State (IS) in Syria, Turkey was an important stabilizer actor and the role model of “secular democracy”. (E.g. Demir, Balci & Akkok 2000). Also, cultural understanding between Kyrgyz and Turkish families is important, as the role of family values is important in both cultures. Demir, Balci and Akkok (2000) conducted research on the roles of Turkish schools in the educational system and social transformation of Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan in the transition period. They found that parents in Turkish schools were involved in their children’s education and parents were satisfied with their close relationship with the school. Also, this study shows how parents are satisfied with Turkish schools as they filled a value gap which has emerged in the transition period and train well-behaved and disciplined individuals who control their life. Turkish influence in Central Asia and Kyrgyzstan is significant because of its strong cultural, ethnic and linguistic ties with Central Asian countries. Concur- rently Russia and European Union education policy have been important actors in the education sector as well as in building a civil society.

Since the 1990s, cooperation between the European Union and Central Asian countries has intensified and stabilized. Education is a field in which the EU and Central Asian countries have a strong mutual interest due to the fact that European educational standards such as the Bologna Process provide an avenue for Central Asian states to be part of the international educational community. Furthermore, the relatively depoliticized nature of education in comparison to other possible fields of cooperation like trade policy, energy or security policy, provides a way

for the EU to engage in Central Asia in a manner acceptable to the Central Asian autocratic governments.

A cooperation agreement between the EU and Central Asian partners, the EU- Central Asia Strategy for a new Partnership, was adopted in June 2007 to foster the modernization of the region. The EU-Central Asia Strategy for a new Partnership includes the Education Initiative for Central Asia (EUEI) “to contribute to the adaptation of the education systems of Central Asian states to the needs of the globalized world and to cooperate with major international partners and donors supporting educational programmes and institutions.” (European Commission 2016). The EU’s regional strategy for providing assistance to Central Asian higher education plays a key role in economic growth and poverty eradication as im-proving the educational standards and opportunities in Central Asia provides an option for the Central Asian states to tap into global value chains and climb up them. In the framework of the EUEI, the EU is working toward uniting Central Asian countries with the European Education Area. Support for higher education in Central Asia takes place through programs like Erasmus (currently Erasmus +) and Tempus (currently Tempus +).

Since the 2000s, Russia has been eager to increase cooperation in the field of quality assurance of education with international actors and to export its own quality assurance model, to the post-Soviet space as well as to former socialist states in Asia and Africa. In the 2000s, the concept of quality became a defining feature of higher education policy in Russia (Bolotov and Efremova 2007). The concept of quality is often employed in the ongoing reforms of the education sector reforms in Russia. In many discussions on higher education policy, the concept of quality is connected to future challenges of the education system and to cooperation between society, labor markets, state and higher education institutions (e.g. Bestuzhev-Lada 2001; Kovaleva 2003). Russia is taking a major role in educational quality assurance in CIS countries where Russia has also exported higher education services by establishing branch offices of Russian universities abroad (Russian federal target program 2006–2010).

In 2008, Russia signed a cooperation agreement with the World Bank on a USD 32 million trust fund for a five-year period for Russian Education Aid for Development (READ 2009). The READ program is a collaborative program of the Government of Russia and the World Bank, which aims to improve basic education quality. The READ program focuses its support on student assessment by concentrating on institutional strengthening of national educational quality assurance functions in low-income countries like Angola, Armenia, Ethiopia, the Kyrgyz Republic, Mozambique, Tajikistan, Vietnam and Zambia (READ 2009). The READ program is the only program managed by the World Bank, which provides dedicated support for education quality and for student learning assessment (READ 2009, 8.) Through this project, Russia was taking a new role as a donor country and becoming a more significant player within educational

development aid, which has given Russia more opportunities to be heard in the global education policy field (Takala & Piattoeva 2012).

Cooperation with Russia takes place through a range of sectors. In 2015, Kyrgyzstan joined the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) as a fifth member. Although Kyrgyzstan is the only country that has joined the Eurasian Economic Union in addition to its founding members, the EEU is the most comprehensive form of economic cooperation in the former Soviet Union. According to the Kremlin’s view, the EEU is a supranational player comparable to the European Union. However, connecting the Crimean Peninsula to Russia and the conflict in Ukraine have revealed the true meaning of the EEU project – the goal of strengthening the influence of Russia on the Soviet territory and isolating the former Soviet Union from the West and China. (Jarosiewicz & Fischer, 2018).

Russia has put forward its own integration regime, the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), and has actively sought to attract new members, as a compensation for integration with the European Union (Ademmer, Delcour & Wolczuk 2016). For Central Asian countries the EEU offers more tangible opportunities for cooperation in the labor market than the EU. In the region of Central Asia current barriers in the field of labor and education, different alphabets, visa regimes and poverty minimize the opportunity for education in other republics and the exchange of students (Nessipbayeva & Delayeva 2013, 394). Opening access to universities and recognition of their awards foster’s innovation and competitiveness in the Central Asian region and is one of the aims behind the EEU cooperation. As a result, the countries of Central Asia are located between the enlarged EU and Russia, cooperation with the EU and EEU has increasingly become an object of contention and rivalry between Brussels and Moscow (Haukkala 2015, 27).