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Duma’s Communists think education minister should be fired

Prime Minister Medvedev made it clear in the course of his address to the MPs he would not send Dmitry Livanov packing

Photo ITAR-TASS

Photo ITAR-TASS

MOSCOW, April 14 (Itar-Tass) - Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev should fire Education and Science Minister Dmitry Livanov, the Deputy Speaker of the State Duma, Ivan Melnikov said Wednesday after completion of Medvedev’s report to the Duma.

“We’ve heard Medvedev’s reserved position on the issue but we’ll proceed from the assumption that a prime minister can’t ignore the demands of all the four parliamentary factions,” said Melnikov, who is man number two in the Communist Party of the Russian Federation.

Melnikov said the Communists had treated the Prime Minister’s speech rather skeptically “because the cabinet has entrenched itself in the stockpiles of papers and has drowned in figures.”

Even after the address, Medvedev’s stance on support to the Russian Academy of Sciences and its Institutes remained unclear.

“Nor did the Prime Minister provide any clear analysis of the aftermaths of this country’s accession to the WTO, which has shaken whole industrial sectors here and has dealt a blow to their competitiveness,” Melnikov said.

Chairman of the Communist Party, Gennady Zyuganov who spoke on behalf of the faction earlier in the day also criticized the cabinet’s activities sharply and especially singled out the sphere of education. He demanded that Minister Livanov be dismissed.

“If these ladies and gentlemen like Golodets /Deputy Prime Minister Olga Golodets who is in charge social policies/, Livanov and Fursenko /former Education Minister Andrei Fursenko/ continue torturing the education system, nothing good will come out of it,” Zyuganov said.

“They’ve ruined the system of nursery schools,” Zyuganov said. “The elementary school is literally dragging its feet. They have axed physics, mathematics, literature, and the Russian language classes.”

He also leveled sharp criticism at the system, which the Education and Science Ministry to expose the inefficiently working universities.

While President Vladimir Putin is speaking about the spiritual roots of the nation, “Mr. Livanov and his crew are plucking these roots out to the dictate from the U.S.,” Zyuganov said.

“If you continue keeping this clique in place, any activities in that sphere will be devoid of sense,” he said.

Prime Minister Medvedev made it clear in the course of his address to the MPs he would not send Dmitry Livanov packing.

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