The activities of "newspapers and magazines," which live on the money in the teacher's pocket, should be reviewed

Today, many educators working in the field of education are still forced to spend a certain part of their salary on such "prey" newspapers and magazines due to mandatory subscriptions.

However, the Law on the Status of Pedagogues guarantees their rights, and in accordance with the Decree of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan No. PP-3907 of August 14, 2018, it is prohibited to organize compulsory subscriptions of public education workers to printed publications. However, some "publications" appear to continue to openly violate laws and regulations.

According to reports circulating on social networks, the season of mandatory subscriptions has begun to intensify again. For example, according to a post published on the "Revizor" Telegram channel, the Navoi Regional Department of Preschool and School Education spent about 400 million soums on subscriptions to such publications as "Ma'naviy Hayot."

Last year, the editorial office of the same magazine "Ma'naviy Hayot" purchased a Chevrolet Tracker 2 car for 276 million soums.

In fact, we can find thousands of such publications in Uzbekistan. We even witnessed an open promotion of mandatory subscription this year.

Of course, newspapers and magazines that constantly work on themselves have loyal subscribers. But, as it is said, rice cannot live without corn, there are also newspapers and magazines that "dead" the budget employees.

Unfortunately, it is difficult to find more interesting information than such "predatory newspapers and magazines." When they are unable to attract subscribers, they choose the easiest way - to hang on to the skirts of the local government and encourage teachers to compulsorily subscribe.

The activities of newspapers and magazines related to compulsory subscriptions should be reviewed immediately

In order to prevent such illegal activities, the Ministry of Preschool and School Education, the Anti-Corruption Agency, the Republican Council of the Trade Union of Education and Science Workers of Uzbekistan should jointly check the activities of newspapers and magazines related to mandatory subscriptions and take legal measures against the perpetrators. In this regard, the editorial office of xalqtaliminfo.uz is ready to cooperate.

In order to review the activities of editorial offices promoting the policy of compulsory subscription, we consider it necessary to carry out the following work:

Collection of complaints and appeals

Collection of complaints about compulsory subscriptions from teachers, school administration and other representatives of the education sector, identification of editorial offices involved in compulsory subscriptions by conducting anonymous surveys of teachers to study public opinion.

Study of contracts with editorial offices

Conduct financial audits, analyze editorial contract subscriptions with teachers and schools, verify transparency of subscription revenue and audit of editorial financial statements, sources of funding and transparency of expenditures.

Take tough action against editorial offices

Publication of the results of the audit in the media, warning the editorial offices in case of detection of violations, sending requests to the relevant organizations to suspend the activities of the editorial office in case of gross violations.

We believe that the relevant ministries and departments will take the necessary measures based on the submitted proposals. We will soon return to this topic.