refused education at primary or secondary schools. In Turkmenistan too, stateless persons with schoolage children who attended meetings in Ashgabat, told UNHCR that their children had received primary and secondary education in state schools on an equal footing with nationals of the country. Within an apparently flexible legal context, practical problems affecting the broader population may have restricted the access of some stateless children to primary and secondary education. Endemic electricity shortages have closed schools in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, for example, most often in rural areas.397 Attendance at schools in Tajikistan reportedly halved in 2008 and in 2009 electricity was rationed on a daily basis in schools, homes and businesses without generators. According to NGO surveys in Tajikistan, on a daily basis rural children also help their mothers to carry water, and consequently, girls in particular miss school.398 The school year in Turkmenistan is limited to 150 days, traditionally to free children for agricultural labour.399 In 2008, a presidential decree forbade the use of school children in the cotton harvest400 but school attendance figures have not yet been published, to show how far the decree was implemented and the impact on stateless children is not known. 5.6 Higher education, language and vocational training In all four States, higher education and vocational training are available on a commercial basis to foreigners in general and persons officially documented as stateless. Enrolment fees for these courses are set by the institution in question and sometimes discriminate in favour of nationals.401 Exceptionally among the four States, Kazakhstan offers free vocational and professional training and higher and post-graduate education in state educational institutions, on a competitive basis, to people who are officially recognised as stateless – provided they have not previously had such education.402 Undocumented stateless persons who attended Participatory Assessments in Kazakhstan with UNHCR said that for their children higher education was inaccessible, because neither they nor their children had a Stateless Person’s Card. In Turkmenistan too, UNHCR spoke with a stateless parent whose son was unable to enter tertiary education because of his family’s unresolved nationality problems. In Turkmenistan, a shortage of higher education places may also limit the prospects for school-leavers, including persons with undocumented nationality. According to the official newspaper Neutral Turkmenistan in May 2009,403 115,000 school-leavers were chasing available places. In 2008, the same newspaper gave these as 4,275 openings in higher education institutes; 1,698 places for vocational training, and 940 higher education places in military and police academies.404 In Kyrgyzstan, the UNHCR regional survey of statelessness in the North showed that three percent of repondents had received a higher education. Comparative statistics for exactly the same period are not available, but the 1999 national census showed that 12% of the population had a higher education.405 In Tajikistan, a stateless parent who attended a Participatory Assessment with UNHCR said that the 397 Central Asia Regional Risk Assessment by UNDP. Data from a 2003 survey of 15,000 households in Temurmalik and Beshkent in rural Khatlon, by the water rights NGO Parastor, available at www.ngoparastor.freenet.tj. 399 UNICEF, Country Information, available at www.unicef.org/infobycountry/Turkmenistan.html. 400 Turkmen Initiative for Human Rights, Little Turkmen Trojans, 25 August 2008, available at www.chronotm.org/?heading=26&page=4. 401 For example, fees are significantly higher for foreign students enrolling in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, according to UNDP’s 2008 Central Asia Regional Risk Assessment. 402 Under Article 10, 1995 Law No 2337 ‘On the Legal Status of Foreigners’ in Kazakhstan. A national scholarship test to enter University in Kyrgyzstan is not open to stateless candidates. 403 Neutral Turkmenistan, No 139, 25 May 2009. 404 Neutral Turkmenistan, 3 September 2008. 405 Cited in UNESCO, Education System, Literacy and Life Long Learning, Country Report on Kyrgyzstan, available at www.unescobkk.org. Typical private university fees for nationals in Kyrgyzstan are 1,500 US Dollars, and for foreigners (who include the recognized stateless) they are 2,000 US Dollars. 398 ~ 61 ~