The authorities in Uzbekistan are reportedly preparing a sweeping overhaul of the national university ranking system, intending to tie institutional performance directly to state funding allocations. According to a drafted order by the National Agency for Quality Assurance in Education, universities are to be divided into three distinct tiers based on their aggregated scores, with the new framework purportedly slated to take effect on January 1, 2027.

Under the proposed mechanism, the top 20 percent of higher education institutions will comprise the first category, the subsequent 40 percent will form the second, and the remaining 40 percent will occupy the third tier. The volume of financial resources distributed to each university will allegedly depend entirely on its assigned category. For institutions with financial autonomy, payouts are expected to be calculated using state-subsidized student tuition baselines.

For other state-run universities, funding amounts will reportedly be determined by overall expenditure coverage needs. Following the official publication of the rankings, the Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Innovations is mandated to transfer the funds to the treasury accounts of the respective universities within 15 working days, allowing them independent discretion over the usage of these financial assets.

The regulatory project also outlines significant modifications to the evaluation metrics. Traditional separate indicators measuring graduate employment and income are supposedly being replaced by a unified graduate quality index. Furthermore, a separate national ranking mechanism is being considered for domestic universities that manage to secure positions within the top one thousand of international evaluation systems such as THE, QS, and ARWU.

Source: podrobno.uz