Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- Experts from the Institute for Forecasting and Macroeconomic Research (IPMI) analyzed the dynamics of development and the level of concentration of higher education in Uzbekistan for 2017-2022.

The sphere of higher education in Uzbekistan occupies an important place both in the development of the economy and human capital and innovation:

- the share of higher education in the total volume of educational services increased to 51% at the end of 2022 against 47% in 2017;

- the number of teaching staff in higher education increased by 1.6 times in 2017-2022;

- in the 2021/22 academic year, the number of foreign students studying in higher educational institutions of the country increased by 4 times compared to 2017/2018 and amounted to 5,100 people;

- the volume of expenditures on R&D in higher education institutions increased in Uzbekistan by 1.3 times in real terms.

An overview of the development trends in the higher education market over the past five years shows a sharp increase in the number of universities by more than 2.5 times (from 72 in the 2017/2018 academic year to 189 universities in the 2022/2023 academic year) and an increase in the number of students by more than 3 times (from 298,000 in the 2017/2018 academic year to 1.04 million students in the 2022/2023 academic year).

To assess the level of competition between universities in the provision of higher education services, the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI or Herfindahl-Hirschman Index) is used. The index characterizes the distribution of market share among universities using the sum of squares of the market shares of university students.

The country’s higher education market concentration index, based on an assessment of the market shares of universities, showed that over the period of 2017-2022 academic years, the index value decreased from 191 to 147. This reflects the high level of general competition among universities.

The calculation of the concentration index of the higher education market by region showed that the market of educational services at the regional level is moderately concentrated. The assessment was carried out on the basis of the HHI index, taking into account regional concentration, i.e. estimates of the market shares of the region in the total number of students in the country.

The level of territorial concentration of higher education in the 2022/2023 academic year was 1525, having decreased from the value of 1745 in the 2017/2018 academic year.

The calculation of the index also showed that a significant contribution to the formation of the HHI index is made by the city of Tashkent, Samarkand and Fergana regions. Despite the decrease in the index over the period from 2017 to 2022, in the last two years there has been a trend towards an increase in the concentration of universities, with a faster growth in the contribution of the city of Tashkent (an increase of 1.5 times) to the value of the overall HHI index by region.

This indicates a slight decrease in competition between universities, taking into account their regional location and an increase in their concentration in Tashkent.

Kashkadarya, Surkhandarya, Namangan and Tashkent region are among the regions with the lowest density of students per 10,000 population. These regions also make the lowest contribution to the HHI index. In these regions, it is advisable to place new universities to reduce regional concentration.