Representatives of international organizations and financial institutions like the UN, ADB, World Bank, Islam Development Bank, education system of 48 countries, including Great Britain, Germany, China, US, South Korea and others participated at the event.

The conference was dedicated to studying experience of Uzbekistan in creation of national model of continuous education and upbringing harmonically developed young generation, etc.

President of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov participated at the conference and delivered a speech, UzA reported.

Uzbek President said that as a whole, the annual expenditures for development and reforming the education in Uzbekistan make up 10-12 percent of the GDP and their share in the expenditures side of the State budget exceeds 35 percent and this by itself serves as a particular confirmation of a huge attention being paid to this sphere.

He said that the wages of school teachers, teachers of professional colleges, lyceums and higher educational institutions during the last 10 years grew 1.5 times faster than the wages in the real sector of economy.

“I would like to specially emphasize the growing volume of foreign technical assistance being channeled to development of education and which made up more than US$500 million for over the past period. In the first instance, this was the assistance of the Asian Development Bank (nearly US$290 million), the Government of the Republic of Korea (more than US$110 million), the World Bank (US$33 million), the OPEC Fund, the Saudi Fund, the Islamic Development Bank (US$42 million), the Government of Germany through KfW Bank (nearly US$20 million) and other donors – more than US$100 million,” the Uzbek head noted.

President Karimov said that if during the past 10 years 80 billion dollars of capital investments have been directed to the economy of Uzbekistan, then over 23 billion dollars or nearly 30 percent of them were the foreign investments.

“In 2012 the growth of foreign investments will make up 16 percent, meanwhile 70 percent of them are the direct foreign investments and this speaks by itself about the growing interest of foreign capital towards the reforms being carried out in our country, and most importantly, about the trust in the prospects of Uzbekistan’s development,” – Uzbek leader stated.

The ADB President Haruhiko Kuroda said that success of Uzbekistan in social and human development deserves high praise. Deeply thought and timely investment of education sphere helps to economic growth and benefit the society. The Uzbek education model takes into account needs related to globalization and it will ensure that Uzbekistan will play more important role in Asia and the world.

It was noted that only economically developed country can ensure development of education. In last five years, average GDP growth of Uzbekistan was 8.5%. It was said that Uzbekistan directs 60% of state budget expenses directed to education sector.

At the plenary session of the conference, detailed information on the Uzbek model of education and upbringing of harmonically developed youth was presented.

It was said that currently Uzbekistan has 9,779 general education schools. Within the state general national programme on development of school education for 2004-2009, 8,500 schools were repaired and major part of them was in rural areas. Overall, 1.4 trillion soums were spent to the programme. All of them were equipped with modern equipment and computer classes, while 96% of all schools in the country are connected to digital information network ZiyoNet.

Currently, there 1,396 professional colleges and 141 academic lyceums operate in Uzbekistan. Some 1.7 million boys and girls study at these educational establishments.

Uzbekistan also has 59 higher education establishments, 11 regional branches of Tashkent universities and six branches of foreign higher education institutes.