Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev has visited the Presidential School in Tashkent.

Bent on accelerated all-round development course, our country is in urgent need of advanced specialists mastering cutting-edge knowledge and skills and technologies. For this purpose in mind, the head of our state signed a number of decrees and resolutions, building up thus the essential normative base on this front. The substance and quality of preschool, general school education and higher one has been modernized.

The Presidential Schools being set up today across Uzbekistan are set to structure an important foundation for the formation of a new generation of cadres. Rather novel to our country, these education institutions are expected to facilitate a holistic system for the identification of gifted children and their training and education with the use of advanced teaching technologies. The entire process in these schools will be in English and in accordance with curricula and programs worked out on the basis of avant-garde foreign practice.

The first such school has been commissioned in the capital Tashkent. An educational block for 168 students and a dormitory with the same number of beds as well as a 15-bed hotel for the teaching staff have been erected and outfitted with state-of-the-art technology.

This year, out of about 7 thousand applicants who had submitted to study at this school in 5-10 grades, 144 were selected. In cooperation with the recruiting companies Teachaway (Canada) and TIC Recruitment (United Kingdom), 30 foreign specialists were hired for instructing at this school alongside the 72 experienced and qualified local teachers. The institution has been provided with textbooks and learning guides under STEAM methodologies.

President Shavkat Mirziyoyev looked around the school and enquired into the conditions created, and talked with students.

“This was the first serious test in your lives. You’ve lived through hard work, knowledge, and seen what they are like, watched how justice works. With all my heart I congratulate you with the honor to study at such a prestigious school. Now you are the gold fund of Uzbekistan,” the President said. “One can glorify a people, a country in different ways. Yet the best of them is to demonstrate knowledge. There is reason to hope that new Khorezmis, Ibn Sinas, Ulugbeks will come out of our youth. This is a historic day. Previously, we had not seen such conditions in our country. From now on, we have Presidential Schools to show to eminent guests visiting our nation, not large factories. You should set an example for everyone with your knowledge, behavior, and sense of patriotism. In the future, you will become a force capable of influencing the development of Uzbekistan.

The President noted that the students of the school, in addition to modern knowledge, must have a strong sense of national identity, should perfectly know the history of our people and their native language.

The head of state also talked with the school’s teachers.

“I would like to tell you the words coming from the very depths of my heart: I trust you with the most precious we have. Looking in the eyes of these children full of pride, I’ve felt strengthened in my conviction of the correctness of the path we chose. I express my gratitude to you for your contribution to the reforms, to the cause of fostering the future generation,” Shavkat Mirziyoyev said.

Meeting with students’ parents and renowned science figures, Uzbekistan’s leader stressed that the third renaissance has begun in the country.

Shavkat Mirziyoyev left a note in the Book of Honored Guests, posed for a picture with the first students and teachers of the school.

Presidential Schools are to open this year in Nukus, Khiva and Namangan. Such schools are intended to be built in Bukhara, Jizzakh, Kashkadarya, Samarkand and Ferghana regions in 2020, and in Andijan, Navoi, Surkhandarya, Syrdarya and Tashkent regions in 2021.