Balancing tradition and reform: tensions in university mathematics curriculum and assessment in Uzbekistan

Reform in Uzbekistan’s higher education has promised competency-based, inquiry-driven and student-centred teaching, yet mathematics curricula remain anchored in inherited traditions. A document analysis of curricula, textbooks and assessments from five universities revealed three dominant patterns: procedural fluency is consistently privileged over reasoning and problem-solving; outdated, procedurally focused textbooks reproduce compliance rather than change; and interdisciplinary or pedagogical integration is largely absent, particularly in teacher education institutions. Centralized governance and high-stakes assessments further constrain the scope for inquiry-based learning, leaving reform rhetoric hollow. These findings highlight how reforms framed around global notions of competency-based education are refracted through enduring institutional legacies, underscoring the need to view higher education reform not only as technical change but also as a profoundly political and cultural process. The study contributes to debates on policy borrowing and higher education reform by exposing the curricular mechanisms through which ambitious agendas are translated into symbolic rather than substantive change.