On October 27, a working meeting between representatives of the Ministry of Education of Turkmenistan, led by Deputy Minister Azat Atayev, and World Bank leaders and experts took place in Washington.

The goal of the meeting is to agree on practical steps to develop the knowledge economy, improve the quality of education, and build a sustainable link between economic planning, education and skills, and scientific research and technology transfer. This was reported on the website bilim.tm.

The World Bank was represented at the meeting by Michal J. Rutkowski, Regional Director for Human Capital in Europe and Central Asia; Beatrice Mather, Executive Director of Country Office 24 (the region that includes Turkmenistan); and Maria Marta Ferreira, Saurav Dev Batta, and Shiro Nakata, Senior Economists in Education.

The parties discussed the development of a bilateral "economy – education and skills – R&D and technology transfer" framework based on national priorities and management analytics, as well as the use of World Bank knowledge and methodologies.

In addition, preparations for piloting an integrated platform for making management decisions in higher and vocational education (integration of educational data, labor market information, quality register, and R&D/technology transfer office circuit) were discussed.

The parties agreed to continue work in three areas: developing a knowledge package and holding technical sessions; collaborating on expertise and analytics in the ASA format (consulting services and analytics); and configuring the parameters of a pilot integrated solution involving universities and vocational education institutions.