According to the census data, significant changes occurred in the distribution of the employed population by types of activity from 1989 to 1999. The number of people employed in industrial production decreased by 2.6 times over the decade. In the mining industry, the number of employed people fell by more than 3 times from 1998 to 1999, totaling 8,400 individuals.
In the republic's manufacturing industry during the same period, 6.2% of the total working-age population was employed. The structure of its sectors is dominated by the production of food products and beverages (27.6% of the total number of workers in this sector), machinery, equipment, and apparatus of all kinds (16.6%), clothing, as well as fur dressing and dyeing (12%), and textile products (11.3%).
The number of people employed in the production and distribution of electricity, steam, gas, and hot water at the time of the census was 25,700 individuals (1.5% of the total employed population). This sector is one of the most stable branches of the economy, where the number of employed people has not undergone significant changes.
Over the years of reform, the importance of the agricultural and forestry sector in the republic has increased, and accordingly, the number of people employed in it has grown by 1.6 times. In 1999, more than 55% of the total employed population was engaged in agriculture. The number of people employed in the service sector decreased by 18% during these years.
Within this sector, significant structural changes occurred, characterized by a reduction in employment in transportation and communications (by 2.1 times), education (by 28%), and healthcare (by 15%). However, at the same time, the number of people whose main activity was wholesale and retail trade increased by 1.8 times, and financial activities grew by 7%.
The current development of the economy and social sphere leads to an increased demand for mid-level specialists, changes in their roles, places, and functions, and higher requirements for their competence, technological culture, and work quality, which inevitably affects the development of the system of secondary vocational education (SVE). The volume of government spending on the SVE system amounted to 8.3% of total government expenditures on education, while 19.6% was spent on higher professional education.
Now, as small production, the household and service sector, small entrepreneurship, and private construction are developing, the demand for mid-level production specialists has sharply increased. The system of vocational education has maintained its potential by inertia and gradually transitioned to market relations.
General characteristics of the secondary vocational education system. Since the adoption of the Law of the Kyrgyz Republic "On Education" in 1992 until the amendments were made in 1997, there was no secondary vocational education as a level of education in the education system.
During the reform of the vocational education system, it was planned to create a multi-level system of post-secondary education, which would include SVE as the first level of higher vocational education. It was proposed to convert secondary vocational educational institutions (SVEs) into colleges, where training of junior specialists with higher education (bachelor of technology) would take place over a period of four years.
However, this level of qualification did not take root in the labor market and turned out to be an unviable dead-end option. Specialists with four years of training were not perceived by employers as specialists with completed higher education, and they often had to continue their studies under a five-year higher education program. Therefore, starting from 2001, these programs were canceled and brought in line with the status of secondary vocational education programs (with a training period of two to three years).
