Research on new trends in the European Union's education policy towards Central Asia

Abstract

This article examines the qualitative shift in the European Union's (EU) education policy towards Central Asia in the first half of the 2020s. Whereas in 2007-2019 cooperation was built mainly as a set of separate higher-education modernisation projects (Tempus, Erasmus Mundus, the Central Asia Education Platform) focused on convergence with European norms, after the renewal of the EU Strategy on Central Asia in 2019 and amid the region's demand for human capital the centre of gravity moved towards a systemic, programmatic partnership: skills development, vocational education and training, and youth employment. This shift culminated in the first-ever EU-Central Asia summit, held in Samarkand on 3-4 April 2025, at which the parties reaffirmed their intention to deepen cooperation in education and science, including through Erasmus+ and the flagship DARYA programme. Drawing on official EU documents and analytical literature, the article identifies five new trends – the strategic upgrading of education, the move from a project-based to a programmatic approach under the «Team Europe» logic, the priority of vocational education and skills, the regionalisation and «Bolognisation» of higher education, and a values- and content-based «Europeanisation» – and shows their internal limits. It concludes that the novelty of EU education policy lies not in a change of goals but in a change of instruments: from targeted project aid to the systemic development of human capital.