Private Driving Schools To Close in Uzbekistan

Tashkent City Street

According to the RFE/RL's Uzbek Service, the government of Uzbekistan made an order that all private driving schools to close and that as of April, 1, 2011, all driver education will be conducted by Defense Ministry’s Vatanparvar (Patriot) branches similarly to the ones that existed during the Soviet’s rule.

Now, more than 130 private driving schools exist in Uzbekistan and this measure will definitely leave many people unemployed.

One owner of a driving school, Svetlana Aleksandrova, noted that “if the decision is not withdrawn, 12 of my employees will lose their jobs and you may count yourself how many people out there working in such schools will be jobless."

Driving school owners gathered in Tashkent, capital of Uzbekistan, on January 5 and filed a complaint about the government’s decision with the Union of Entrepreneurs of Uzbekistan. The owners noted that 2011 was proclaimed by the President Islam Karimov as the "year of small businesses and private entrepreneurship" and that such measures only hurt private businesses.

The government’s reason for closing private driving schools comes from the poor skills of graduates and an increase in road accidents. Many students do not regularly attend the driving lessons and pay bribes to receive their driver's licenses. So, the real issue might be with the Traffic Security Department of the Interior Ministry where a person goes for an exam, and often, pays the department employees through their driving school teachers to get through the exam. Consequently, the responsibility should be increased at the traffic security department so that only able students can pass the tests.

Accordingly, experts say that without eliminating corruption within the Traffic Security Department, the closure of private driving schools is meaningless as road accidents due to poor driving skills will continue to occur and the government's new plan will only worsen corruption.