DUSHANBE, 01.09.2022 (NIAT Khovar) –  The Founder of Peace and National Unity, Leader of the Nation, President of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon and the Speaker of the National Assembly, Chairman of Dushanbe Rustam Emomali attended the unveiling of a monument to Abu Ali ibn Sino and the new building of the Tajik State Medical University named after Abu Ali ibn Sino.

He also addressed on the Day of Knowledge, so-called Peace Lesson at the Tajik State Medical University named after Sino.

The new buildings of the university consists of 62 spacious auditoriums, a computer class for 80 seats, 90 study rooms, 26 auxiliary points, two lecture halls with 500 seats, two conference rooms with 50 seats, and four laboratories.

The building also features a conference hall with 1,600 seats.

For 83 years, the university has trained specialists for healthcare institutions of the country and is considered the main educational, scientific and methodological base of the Ministry of Health and Social Protection of the population.

Since its founding, the university has educated and trained more than 46,000 students, of which 1,500 are foreign citizens from 36 countries. Every year, the number of foreign citizens who wish to study at this university is increasing. In 2021-2022 almost 2,000 foreign citizens from 20 countries studied at the university.

President Rahmon started his speech with a focus on peace and emphasized that the beginning of the new academic year with the lesson of peace has a special reason and importance for Tajiks. The noble people of Tajikistan value peace and tranquility, political stability and national unity. He remarked that during the 31 years of independence, 32 higher education institutions, 41 institutions of primary and secondary vocational education and 3,246 schools, including 156 gymnasiums, lyceums, international schools, 300 preschools, as well as 2,723 health care facilities have been build in Tajikistan.

Only in 2021 and the first six months of this year, 247 secondary educational institutions for more than 110,000 students were opened.

Today, on September 1, almost 2,300,000 children, including over 1,110,000 girls, started studying in educational institutions, 272,000 of them going to school for the first time. They are taught by more than 128,000 teachers, 72% of whom are women.

He expressed satisfaction that the Tajik people have made these achievements due to independence, freedom and dedicated work of the people.

He also noted that in 2022, 6.3 billion somoni has been allocated toward education, which is 706 million somoni or 11.3% more compared to 2021, and is 19% of the total amount of the state budget expenditure.

The government is periodically increasing funding to ensure the smooth development of the health sector. For example, in 2019 the budget of the healthcare sector was 1.7 billion somoni. This number has increased to 2.8 billion somoni in 2022, which is 66% more compared to 2019. At the end of his speech, President Rahmon proposed to establish the Institute of Basic Medicine for carrying out high-level virological, genetic, immunological, and microbiological analysis.