A New Season: Changes in Samarkand

by Randy Vernon, Uzbekistan, Country Leader

In a land far away – where caravans of camels plodded on the Silk Road, domed mosques still dot the landscape and sand, sand, and more sand swirls everywhere – resides an ancient educational center. Samarkand, Uzbekistan? This probably didn’t immediately leap to mind, but Samarkand has been a center of education for centuries.

The Registan

Located in Samarkand, the Registan, arguably the poster child of Central Asian architecture, was originally used as a center for higher education, teaching subjects such as astronomy, mathematics, philosophy and theology. Today the Registan is primarily a tourist attraction, but education in Samarkand continues. We at REI have the privilege of participating in the education of young citizens of this fascinating city.

The function of the Registan changed significantly over the centuries. No surprise. Change happens. Samarkand International University of Technology (SIUT) has also undergone changes, although not on a level with the Registan! This school year welcomed us with a new campus facility, new students, the departure of some faculty and the arrival of others. Our new campus is not the long-awaited beauteous campus still under construction, but as SIUT had outgrown our first building, we are now in a different rented facility, large enough for our current student body of nearly 500 students. There are even dorms for men and women, a separate building for administration and faculty, even trees and a soccer field! All this is good. This change is good.

An academic building with classrooms and labs at SIUT's new interim campus

There is also change in our REI team, as one staff couple left Samarkand to serve in the city of Oskemen, Kazakhstan, and another teammate finished his two-year apprenticeship and is now working on a master’s degree in Wyoming. Besides my wife Jill and me, our current team includes four others. We also anticipate the arrival of a family with their two boys from Singapore in early 2026. There are other young people who have applied to join our team, and still others who are considering it, two of whom have come to Samarkand on a survey/vision trip to get a better idea of what it would be like to live and work here. Meanwhile, the team has grown through the arrival of a baby girl, born September 7 to our staff couple, joining her nearly 2-year-old sister. This change is very good!

But the biggest changes, perhaps, is the increased quality of our students. As a new university, to achieve admission goals we sometimes lowered the admissions bar a wee bit too much, resulting in admitting students who were not ready for studies in English at the university level. This year most, if not all, of our students are ready for prime time. We still have remedial programs for both English and math (one of our staff is largely responsible for the latter). But many of our classes are a joy to teach, with bright-eyed, attentive, and inquisitive students.

Randy and an SIUT student setting up the game Mousetrap

Our team continues to teach a variety of subjects, from engineering foundations to physics to digital logic design to ethics to English (one of the most recent lessons being on cause and effect language, using the game Mousetrap as a visible example of cause and effect). You may remember that the focus of SIUT is training engineers of various stripes, but we also have departments of Design, Digital Economy, Business, Tourism, and Computer Science. Alas, no astronomy as yet, but we do have a visiting aerospace engineer, which surely counts for something. Our classroom assignments have some continuity from last year, but all of us are teaching new courses as well. Change. (Have you picked up on the key word in this blog yet?)

SIUT is also seeking to implement a dual-education approach to education, which would include both classroom academics and hands-on internships. How that is going to look, exactly, is still uncertain, but the month of November has been designated as our month of internships. To accommodate this, our regular class schedule will almost certainly (dare I say it?) change.

REI staff teaching engineering students

Outside of SIUT, Jill has initiated teaching English to nurses, doctors, and possibly medical students at Zarmed University and Samarkand State University, as part of our effort to contribute to the healthcare system here. We have already established an MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) with Zarmed; another one with Samarkand State is in process. This will facilitate bringing in short-term medical teams to help build increasingly competent healthcare professionals. We are thrilled to see this project moving forward!

Looking to the future, we hope that REI will continue to help SIUT become a genuinely world-class center for education (and not a tourist attraction!), a place where young men and women will receive training to make a significant contribution to their city, their country, the region, and the world…that it will produce well-trained professionals who will invest in building people to build their nation, and beyond. We are committed to this vision, and are thankful for you, and your interest, in this vision as well. Please, don’t change!