Kelajak Admits Past Enrolment Figures Were Inflated but Leaves Core Questions Unanswered

The Republic of Kelajak Centre has acknowledged that enrolment figures for its extracurricular circles were artificially inflated in previous years — a concession that raises immediate questions about the reliability of official reporting on which educational assessments, institutional evaluations and policy decisions were based.

The admission came in a formal statement issued after Effect.uz published a series of articles examining the centre’s operations. According to the centre, a re-audit and re-registration process revealed that both the number of circles and the number of pupils enrolled in them had been overstated in earlier periods. The centre says it is now presenting figures that reflect actual conditions.

What the Statement Does — and Does Not — Explain

The formal response leaves the most consequential questions open. No specific figures are given for how many pupils were falsely counted, in which regions the discrepancies were found, or who bears responsibility for the inflation. Without that data, it is impossible to assess the scale of the distortion or whether corrective action has been taken against those responsible.

The centre also disclosed that more than 21,500 children from families registered in the Social Registry have been exempted from parental fees — a socially significant measure. But that figure does not account for the system-wide decline of 209,919 in registered enrolment that had been identified in earlier reporting. The gap between the exemption figure and the overall drop remains unexplained.

On fees, the centre confirmed that payment amounts are set under Government Resolution No. 776, but the question raised in prior coverage was not whether a legal basis exists — it was whether rising fees have reduced families’ ability to enrol their children. That question was not addressed. Similarly, confirmation that nine subject areas and 62 named circles have been approved says nothing about how many children are actually attending regularly or why overall coverage has contracted.

Earlier Questions Still Without a Response

The centre’s statement responded only to the most recent article in the series. Several earlier investigations by Effect.uz remain without any official reply. One article, focused on documents from Samarkand region, raised questions about a requirement to transfer ten per cent of parental fee revenue to a Republic Kelajak Centre fund — including the legal basis for that requirement and how the funds were used. Another piece reported serious allegations contained in a collective appeal from staff and directors about the process by which centres were established and personnel were selected and dismissed.

The absence of responses to those earlier articles is noted without attributing deliberate evasion. But the pattern matters: if the centre’s stated goal is transparency before the public, a single response to a single article — while financial accounting, fund movements, staff dismissals and leadership selection processes remain unaddressed — falls short of that standard. Transparency, as the outlet put it, is not the act of issuing a statement; it is answering all substantive questions with documents and precise figures.