Review: <em>How NGOs React: Globalization and Education Reform in the Caucasus, Central Asia, and Mongolia</em> by Iveta Silova and Gita Steiner-Khamsi

Abstract

How NGOs React: Globalization and Educational Reform in the Caucasus, Central Asia, and Mongolia by Iveta Silova and Gita Steiner- Khamsi. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press, 2008. 303 pp. ISBN 978-1- In the field of International Education, connecting with the right people, individuals with funding and influence, is a categorical endeavor that How NGOs React does not take lightly. While a plethora of interesting articles make their home in this volume of edited works on Central Asian education reforms, the real magic appears in Iveta Silova and Gita Steiner-Khamsi’s savvy editorial choices. As they explicitly note in their introduction, “In order to secure a grant or loan, the ministries of education had first to learn to speak the language of international donors” (p. 14). If any Central Asian Department of Education needs pointers on crafting a message, How NGOs React should be the guidebook; through their deliberate choices, Silova and Steiner-Khamsi highlight the conceptual power of space, image, and ideology in framing projects to fit the predilections of conservative funding agencies. Published in 2008, How NGOs React marks a strategic departure from geographic positioning of earlier books on Central Asian Education. Whereas most editors (such as Stephen P. Heyneman and Alan J. DeYoung in their must- read book The Challenge of Education in Central Asia) show an indelible Soviet Urstoff in their characterizations, Silova and Steiner-Khamsi realign the boundaries to weight an Asian identity. In particular, with the prominent inclusion of Mongolia, a sparsely populated country that barely registers in other education texts, this identity challenge is largely solved. Though Mongolian culture itself felt nearly 70 years of Soviet hegemony before 1990, the Western perception of Mongolia goes much further back in history. In place of the “Iron Curtain,” Euro- American investors can conjure the glory of Genghis Khan’s imperial charge through China, India, and Eastern Europe. Steiner-Khamsi, North America’s foremost Mongolian education specialist, begins and ends the book with comparative discussions of Mongolian education. By relating Central Asian educational trends through the most exotic and geographically distant country to Russia, Silova and Steiner-Khamsi harness the Euro-American Orientalist view of Mongolia as an untamed, free nomadic space. While mapping Central Asian geography apart from associations with Soviet Socialism, they simultaneously add weight and distinctiveness to this region. While redrawing the map for Euro-American education funding agencies, How NGOs React reimagines the students of Central Asia. This book refuses to reify our expectations with snapshots of charming yet bucolic learners; the students in How NGOs React are refreshingly dapper and professional. Ensconced in a tasteful, corporate navy blue background, one large black and white photo