History of Muslim education reform in imperial Turkestan: preparation of national textbooks and the problems of pedagogy

Abstract

At the end of the 19 th century, the Turkestan Region became the scene of disputes in the field of school education. The imperial administration created a whole network of Russian schools in the Turkestan Region (gymnasium, progymnasium, military school, Russian-native schools), but the local population continued to use their system of old-method schools. It can be said that during this period, only under the influence of the ideas of the Tatar intelligentsia leader Isma‘il Gasprinsky, the local population also turned to the creation of new-method schools. These educational institutions, which were called “al-jadidiya”, along with the preservation of Muslim elements, were supposed to combine the components of the new ways of modern education. It provided the application of a new methodology, the study of foreign languages, the Russian language and secular sciences. The educational approach of these schools paid special attention to the integration of the peculiar national and religious traditions of the people. As a result, a whole group of Turkestan educators embarked on an educational reform, where one of the focal points was providing literacy in the native language. The paper examines the formation of the first new method schools and the use of modern teaching methods in Turkestan in the late 19 th − early 20 th centuries. Besides, the article highlights the school reform supported by the so-called national “progressists”, analyses the textbooks used in Jadid schools, and the problems associated with education at the beginning of the 20 th century.