INTERNATIONAL INTEGRATION OF EDUCATION WITHIN THE SCO FRAMEWORK: A DRIVING FORCE FOR JOINT CONSTRUCTION OF THE ‘SILK ROAD ECONOMIC BELT’

Abstract

The ‘Silk Road Economic Belt’ (SREB) project was presented by Xi Jinping in the autumn of 2013 in Kazakhstan. The goals of building the Silk Road Economic Belt coincide with the objectives of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). The SREB initiative got a positive response from the SCO member states. Humanistic cooperation, especially in the field of education, is becoming one of the fastest growing areas of cooperation within the SCO. The SCO University (USCO), as a form of the integration process within the SCO framework, is an important driving force for the implementation of the Silk Road Economic Belt initiative. In this paper, the results of education cooperation between the universities within the SCO are analyzed; deficiencies and imbalances in talent cultivation are pointed out. The study is based on the methods of quantitative, qualitative and comparative analysis. In order to identify the problems and obstacles in talent cultivation and to propose solutions, the method of questionnaire is used. The paper discusses the results of the integration of education within the SCO framework and the role of the USCO in developing cooperation between the member states, as well as the challenges faced by the participant countries in implementing the strategy of international integration of education.