Every morning in Chokmorov village, Khanzada Segizbaeva takes her two children to preschool and then walks to a nearby sewing workshop. Having dependable childcare meant she could return to paid work after maternity leave. For Khanzada, the calculus is simple:“I work to earn money for my children,” she says. “There’s no salary to be made at home.”
While her children spend three hours learning and playing, Khanzada has time to hem, mend, and stitch garments as a seamstress, bringing in extra income to buy household necessities. Across the Kyrgyz Republic, other mothers in rural communities are using those hours to work as teachers, tend their farms, run small businesses, or return to jobs they had left to care for their newborns.
Converting Empty Buildings into Preschools
Access to preschool has long been scarce outside the Kyrgyz Republic’s biggest cities. In 2016, only one in four children in the country aged three to six attended, with those from lower-income households least likely to attend. Not only did this place roughly 75% of the country’s children at a disadvantage in terms of their socialization and preparation for grade school, but it also meant that for many mothers there was a lack of childcare — making working outside the home for parents like Khanzada difficult, if not impossible.
By improving access to affordable childcare across the country, particularly in rural areas, the Kyrgyz Republic can narrow the urban-rural divide, boost its human capital potential, and empower more women to enter the workforce or pursue starting a business.
The Learning for the Future Project, implemented by the Ministry of Education with financing from the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA), has helped repurpose existing, but unused public buildings to create much-needed childcare capacity in rural areas. Vacant schools and former health posts were converted into preschools that were supplied with furniture and learning materials and installed with toilets and outdoor play areas.
In Chokmorov, for example, the village repaired an old school building that had been empty for five years, and parents helped paint the walls before it re-opened as a preschool.
In total, between 2020 and 2026, the project established 560 preschools by converting underused public buildings across the country — facilities that now enroll roughly 35,000 children.
