Governing the Digital Turn: A Strategic Roadmap for Building the Central Asian Higher Education Area (CAHEA)

For two decades, Central Asian nations have tried to integrate their higher education systems by copying European institutions. This approach has largely stalled due to bureaucratic inertia and limited resources. This article proposes a different path: building a "Digital Trust Infrastructure" (DTI) instead of expanding bureaucracy. Based on the theoretical framework of cryptographic governance and empirical feasibility studies, we present a ten-year strategic roadmap (2025–2035). We outline three phases: creating a regulatory sandbox for pilot universities, establishing national sovereign blockchains, and finally, moving toward algorithmic automation of credit recognition. We argue that technology can allow Central Asia to "leapfrog" traditional institutional development, provided governments shift their role from gatekeepers to digital architects.