Andrei Liakhov: “Re: 2018-#105-Johnson’s Russia List (re The Spectator (UK) Owen Matthews)”

Kremlin and Saint Basil's File Photo

Subject: Re: 2018-#105-Johnson’s Russia List (re The Spectator (UK) Owen Matthews)
Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2018
From: Andrei Liakhov <gaffriloff@yahoo.co.uk>

Comments on Owen’s Piece

I am really surprised by this piece. I wonder where he took his statistics about number of schools and “crumbling houses”.

UNESCO praised Russian pre-school education as recently as in 2014 (increase to 84% of kids attending kindergartens from 67% in 2000).

His drop in number of school is 11(!) years old and relates to the drop in numbers between 2001 and 2007. In 2009 the reform in the Russian educational system lead to a drop in “schools” because only educational establishments which adopt “general educational curriculum” are now counted as schools. In reality, most of specialised and high quality schools were simply re-named as “gimnasiums”, “Lyceums”, etc. In addition in 2017 a record number of newly built schools were commissioned (170).

The number of educational establishments (“schools” under old classification) has reached 94,000 (NINETY FOUR THOUSAND).

Given Mr.Owen’s record I do not think he has not researched the issue before writing highly prejudiced piece for the Spectator.

It took me 20 minutes to understand how he twisted the facts to fit his theory of crumbling Russia.

Unfortunately an average reader of the Spectator would hardly bother. Another fake news sold by a formerly reputable researcher.

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