Six Educational Institutions in Turkmenistan Successfully Pass State Accreditation for the First Time
A ceremonial event was held in Ashgabat to award the first state accreditation certificates to educational institutions in the country. This milestone officially confirms that Turkmenistan’s national education system has reached a new level of quality and now fully aligns with international standards, UNESCO classifications, and the principles of the Lisbon Recognition Convention.
The newly established unified quality assurance system covers all levels of education. According to the first annual accreditation plan, eight institutions applied for accreditation in 2026, and six successfully passed a rigorous and objective expert evaluation process.
Among the institutions receiving accreditation certificates were the State Energy Institute of Turkmenistan and the Institute of Telecommunications and Informatics of Turkmenistan. Accreditation was also granted to the Hydyr Deryayev Pedagogical School, the Mary Regional Financial and Economic Secondary Vocational School, and Ashgabat Secondary Schools No. 29 and No. 74, both specializing in foreign language studies.
The creation of a national accreditation system is the result of extensive organizational and legal reforms carried out under the leadership of President Serdar Berdimuhamedov. The key legal foundation for this process was the Regulation on State Accreditation of Educational Activities, approved in February 2024.
This step became an important institutional management tool amid rapid demographic growth. Over the past decade, the number of university students in Turkmenistan has more than doubled, creating the need for new approaches to educational quality control.
The modernization of the education system has already produced significant results. Between 2020 and 2025, the number of publications by Turkmen authors in international academic journals increased from 963 to a record 13,960.
At the same time, the number of publications indexed in Scopus and Web of Science grew fortyfold, while the number of university patents increased twenty-onefold. In addition, in 2025, fourteen higher education institutions from the country entered the respected global rankings of Times Higher Education.
The accreditation certificates will remain valid for five years and will serve as an incentive for institutions to continue improving the quality of education.
The successful launch of the accreditation process has laid a solid foundation for implementing Turkmenistan’s Higher Professional Education Development Strategy for 2026–2052. The strategy aims to integrate science, education, and industry into a unified ecosystem, fostering innovation and sustainable development.
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