Head of Russian Book Union: Most textbooks in Kyrgyzstan are counterfeit

President of the Russian Book Union Sergey Stepashin addressed the head of Kyrgyzstan Sooronbai Jeenbekov.
In his letter, he notes that "the problem of school textbooks is very acute." "In June - August 2019, as part of the monitoring of the educational literature market of the Kyrgyz Republic, representatives of copyright holders made a number of test purchases at book-selling organizations in Kyrgyzstan, which revealed serious problems in this area," the letter says.
"Kyrgyz school students are forced to learn from low-quality fakes or books that have lost their scientific and methodological relevance," notes Sergey Stepashin.
According to independent experts, the vast majority of textbooks under the copyright of Russian publishers in the markets of Kyrgyzstan, in particular, Dordoi and Kara-Suu, are counterfeit.
From the letter to the President Sooronbai Jeenbekov Sergey Stepashin claims that cases have been detected when counterfeit textbooks were purchased at the expense of budget funds, which poses a threat not only to Kyrgyz students, but also to Russia and other EAEU countries.
The head of the Russian Book Union asks the president of Kyrgyzstan to give instructions to continue the necessary interagency measures to curb the illicit trafficking of educational literature for schools.