Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.
Nelson Mandela
Among the many means of acquiring influence in contemporary global politics, educational cooperation is a form of interstate engagement that binds countries like no other. While future leaders form long-lasting ties with foreign states as they pursue their education, cooperation in the educational sphere also provides outside powers with an opportunity to influence and shape the views of the public at large in target countries. Anastasia Pogorelskaya, Associate Professor at Tomsk State University, explores educational cooperation between Central Asian states and Western powers, highlighting the growing influence of Western educational institutions in the region. The author is a participant of the Valdai – New Generation project.
Since 2022, there has been a marked intensification of Western policy towards Central Asia, as evidenced by the frequency of official visits, meetings in the C5+1 format, and the announcement of new projects. In reality, however, work with Central Asian elites has been underway for quite some time, particularly through their education. The emphasis on providing education to elites is a revealing example of the “soft power” of education, yielding long-term dividends. Its strategic objective is to cultivate a stratum of loyal graduates who will facilitate the development of multidimensional cooperation with the country in which they studied. As of 2025, two-thirds of current world leaders received their higher education within the Anglo-Saxon educational system. Given the strategic importance of the Central Asian states for Russian foreign policy and security, the preference of Central Asian elites for Western rather than Russian universities weakens Russia’s ties with the countries of the region.
The activity of Western universities coincided with the Central Asian states’ own intentions to diversify the geography of educational cooperation in order to attract foreign investment into their human capital. The heightened interest in establishing branches of foreign universities on their own territory is also driven by concerns over brain drain. The geography of these branch campuses carries the same subtext—for example, the branch of the University of Arizona established at North Kazakhstan University is located in a region traditionally characterised by an outflow of applicants to Russia. In addition, the unfavourable international environment and the limited resources of Russian universities are enabling competitors to balance Russian influence in Central Asian educational cooperation ever more actively.
Several factors indicate that Western countries have set their sights on Central Asian elites. First, Western higher education is expensive, resulting in the automatic selection of the wealthiest applicants—residents of capitals and major cities, and more often than not, individuals from elite social strata.
Second, despite the increasingly active rhetoric surrounding cooperation in recent years, Central Asia is not a geographical priority for most Western partners. Consequently, their willingness to invest in education for the broader population of the region remains limited. The number of scholarships allocated to the region is negligible, yet sufficient to attract the most highly qualified applicants, which again favours affluent urban residents.
Third, Western countries have succeeded in creating a durable perception of the prestige of their higher education systems, aided in no small part by international university rankings compiled by commercial companies and media organisations based in those same countries. A diploma from a prestigious university is regarded by wealthy and influential parents as one of the most important investments in their children’s future. Consequently, Central Asian elites are increasingly sending their children specifically to Western universities.
Following the adoption by the United States of a dedicated foreign policy Strategy for Central Asia in 2019, Washington began strengthening its presence in the region through the creation of full-fledged branch campuses of American universities. In Tashkent, a branch of Webster University opened in 2019, followed by the American University of Technology in 2024. In Kazakhstan, a branch of the University of Arizona was established at North Kazakhstan University in 2022. At the same time, the number of students travelling from Central Asia to the United States has grown steadily—from 3,100 in the 2017/2018 academic year to 6,500 in 2024/2025. Despite the current curtailment of scholarship programmes and the activities of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), American higher education has become less accessible, but no less attractive, for citizens of Central Asian countries.
The United Kingdom has traditionally regarded Central Asia as a space of geopolitical rivalry with Russia. Its first foothold in Central Asian higher education was established in 2002 with the founding of the Westminster International University in Tashkent. Taking advantage of the deterioration in Russia’s international position since 2022, the British side promptly announced an expansion of cooperation with the region as a counterweight to Russian and Chinese influence. This intention found fertile ground, as it coincided with Kazakhstan’s efforts to expand its network of foreign university branches. As a result, campuses of De Montfort University (2021), Coventry University (2024), and Cardiff University (2025) began operating there, while in 2023 a branch of Heriot-Watt University was established at Zhubanov Aktobe Regional University.
Lacking both the capacity and, to a considerable extent, the desire to invest heavily in the region, British higher education has nonetheless expanded its influence in Uzbekistan by granting local private universities the right to teach programmes based on British curricula under a franchise-style model. The range of subjects offered—economics, finance, management, IT, international relations, and MBA programmes—demonstrates that the United Kingdom has targeted the region’s business elite. The positioning of British higher education as elite has also contributed to a sharp increase in student mobility from Central Asia to the United Kingdom—from 384 students in 2000 to 2,546 in 2023. However, 91% of these students come from the comparatively more affluent populations of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
The European Union has traditionally included Central Asian states within programmes ranging from Tempus to Erasmus+. The latter is regarded by the EU as an important instrument for the “Europeanisation” of participants in academic mobility schemes. Since 2024, agreements have been implemented to provide advanced training for diplomats from the five Central Asian states at the College of Europe in Bruges. The Bologna Process has likewise been placed at the service of the European Union’s foreign policy ambitions, designed to familiarise third countries with European standards. It enables the EU to project its normative power and to develop educational cooperation with Central Asia “on its own terms”, securing the implementation of European practices and standards within the region’s leading universities.
In addition, agreements have been reached between Western countries and Central Asian states regarding the training of military personnel, who traditionally constitute an important part of the region’s elites. American instructors trained elite military units in several Central Asian states within the framework of development assistance programmes, and also trained junior officers at the cadet corps of Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Defence. Furthermore, hundreds of Kazakh military personnel undertook training courses in the United States, Italy, and Poland. In June 2025, the defence ministries of Kazakhstan and the United Kingdom adopted a two-year cooperation plan that includes the training of Kazakh military personnel at British military academies.
Thus, Western countries have gained the opportunity to establish connections with representatives of Central Asia’s political, business, military, and academic elites during the formative stage of their education. Upon returning home, graduates become conduits for foreign higher education within their own states. For example, Kazakhstan’s active efforts to attract branches of British and American universities coincided with the appointment of Sayasat Nurbek as Minister of Education—a figure educated in the United States and Italy. The heirs to today’s Central Asian elites increasingly favour universities in the United States, the United Kingdom, Turkey, Switzerland, and Poland, and to a lesser extent Russia, demonstrating the success of this approach to strengthening Western influence in the region over the long term.
