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This chapter discusses schooling and learning in Kyrgyzstan as an opportunity that is structured by Soviet ideological heritage, state resource distribution, gendered upbringing, ethnic belonging, language policies and the differences between urban and rural domains. Based on ethnographic data collected in 2016, I show that from the vantage point of village residents, receiving an education in a city environment might promise future professional success but also is associated with substantial fears of young people’s moral decline and alienation from the cultural home. It becomes apparent that in present-day Kyrgyzstan, the transfer of institutionalised knowledge is a process negotiated by parents, children, teachers and local village communities in light of a growing prominence of Islam, higher divorce rates or international labour migration—yet also with a widespread unawareness about the actual demands of the …