Press release
Education Ministries of Central Asia and Mongolia and OSCE HCNM publish joint communiqué on multilingual education
- Date:
- Place:
- THE HAGUE
- Source:
- OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities
THE HAGUE, 13 November 2026 – The Ministries responsible for education in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, together with OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities Christophe Kamp, today published a joint communiqué on fostering regional co-operation through multilingual education in Central Asia and Mongolia.
The communiqué is one of the tangible outcomes of a ministerial roundtable held in Ashgabat on 22 October 2026, hosted by the Ministry of Education of Turkmenistan and convened by the High Commissioner.
The text builds on the inter-State dialogue on the place of language in education begun in Tashkent in 2006, and on the three phases of the Central Asia Education Programme that the High Commissioner’s office carried out with UNICEF between 2012 and 2021.
The communiqué underlines the region’s linguistic diversity. Almost every State language of the Central Asian States and Mongolia is also a language spoken at home by communities across a border. Education systems that foster a child’s first language alongside the State language allow children to grow up at ease in both languages. This contributes to a sense of belonging and underpins the trust on which integration and social cohesion depend. In the view of the High Commissioner, regional co-operation on language‑in‑education policies can build resilience.
In the communiqué, the six Ministries recognize that well designed multilingual education supports effective and inclusive education, strengthens acquisition of the State language, maintains and promotes first languages, and fosters knowledge of additional languages. They describe their linguistic diversity as an asset that can support the competitiveness of their economies, the integration of their diverse societies and good neighbourly relations among their States.
The Ministries furthermore name three areas of mutual support: the availability and training of teachers able to teach through more than one language; the development and sharing of teaching materials, methodologies and subject terminology; and education-related data and assessment that respond to the needs of, and are owned by, the region. Each Ministry will designate two focal points for language-in-education policy.
The High Commissioner has offered to convene a capacity-building workshop for those focal points in 2027, to convene a further high-level meeting with relevant partners, to facilitate the exchange of good practice among the six Ministries and beyond, and to bring a wider range of international partners in to support multilingual education in Central Asia and Mongolia.
The roundtable also marked the 30th anniversary of The Hague Recommendations Regarding the Education Rights of National Minorities.
The full text of the communiqué is available in English and Russian.
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