The government of Turkmenistan has set up new travel regulations essentially barring hundreds of students from studying abroad. As the academic year begins, male students who were looking forward to starting or restarting their studies after the holidays will instead be drafted into the national army on 22 September.

It all started with an announcement on television news one evening in late July, when Turkmenistan's Ministry of Education declared new rules for students' travelling abroad. Most students, however, learned about the regulations only at the border or airport, where they were asked for their official permission to study outside the country.

There are numerous reports that students lacking the required document -- an exit visa in all but name -- were prevented from leaving the country. Some were even forcibly removed from their planes on the tarmac. Approximately 5,000 students have been affected by the new regulation.

My trustworthy Turkmen legal sources tell me that Turkmenistan's Law on Migration stipulates students going to study abroad must present to the Ministry of Migration an invitation from the host university. But there is no provision in the law that the government can prohibit students from attending any university, and no rule that the host institution must be state funded or accredited in Turkmenistan.

Apparently, the new rules were prompted by a shake up at the Education Ministry. In early July, the President had asked his Minister of Education to report on how many Turkmen students were studying abroad and where they were enrolled. When that Minister failed to answer, he was sacked. Keen not to repeat such a mistake, the incoming Education Minister made it her priority to obtain the information and instituted an administrative procedure at the border.

To make the first bell this year, some students escaped their country by tricking the authorities. Some used their dual citizenship and travelled through a third country. Others went as tourists. The students at some universities in other Central Asian countries are now under heavy emotional pressure from the Turkmen authorities, who told them that unless they return home, their parents would be under investigation and would lose their jobs. It's no idle threat: there are two confirmed cases of students' parents being sacked already.

It's a strange country that actively seeks to spoil the educational opportunities of its future generation, but Turkmenistan has often demonstrated an attitude of mistrust towards small and private universities, particularly those in other countries of the former Soviet Union. Under the cult-of-personality president, Saparmurat "Father of all Turkmen" Niyazov (the loon who renamed the months of the year after himself and his mother among other infamous acts of madness), the country long refused to recognise university degrees obtained outside Turkmenistan. With current President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, the past seems to be coming back like a nasty school dinner.


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