Sherzod Shermatov: If we do not provide school principals with sufficient monthly salary, there is no point in talking about combating corruption

The Minister of Public Education Sherzod Shermatov spoke on his Facebook page about the problems faced by the public education system.

“In the capital, school principals are paid 2.5 million soums a month (less than $300). They have higher loadings and stress than private school principals do. I invited private school principals in Tashkent to the public service, but they refused. They said that they earn $3,000 - $5,000 a month without stress and having rest on holidays.

When we began to study this problem last year, at more than 77 schools of Tashkent (25%), less pupils were educated than their actual capacity,” Shermatov says.

According to the Minister, there are few countries in the world where there are schools of the same quality. In Singapore, this has been achieved through better funding the public schools compared with private educational institutions.

“The economy of our country also accounts for the secretive sector. So currently, it is not possible to cover the cost of schools at the expense of the state budget,” Sherzod Shermatov notes.

“It takes time. I hope these goals will be achieved. For the time being, qualified executives should be ensured that their official activities are advantageous and easy to handle. If we do not provide school principals with sufficient monthly salary, there is no point in talking about combating corruption,” Shermatov says.

The Minister said that then it would be possible to further strengthen public oversight of compliance with their income declaration. And also, public control over observance of anti-corruption legislation with participation of the Supervisory Board and the media can be increased.

“If we regularly punish and arrest them, we will lose competent personnel, who are already less in number. We should encourage prominent schools to continue their development, and motivate the schools, which are low in demand, to learn the experience of prestigious schools. This will open up additional opportunities for them,” Sherzod Shermatov concluded.