Soviet cultural policy: education, script, arts

Soviet power expanded education: new schools and technical colleges were opened, Jadid and waqf schools were closed, in 1935 the task was set of drawing all children aged 8–15 into compulsory seven-year schooling; in the second five-year plan 539 new schools were built, general schools had 931,800 pupils and teaching was in 18 languages. In 1937 the number of literacy schools reached 413. Higher education also grew (by 1940 there were 30 higher and about 100 secondary specialised institutions), but according to the textbook Uzbeks were few among students and teachers. In science, the Uzbek Committee of Sciences was formed on 14 October 1932 and on 9 January 1940 became the Uzbek branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences. The script was changed several times: in 1921–1922 the Arabic orthography was simplified, in 1929 the switch to Latin letters was made, and on 8 May 1940, by decision of the Supreme Soviet of the Uzbek SSR, the switch to Cyrillic; besides official reasons, critics hold that these changes cut people off from the older written heritage and Turkic ties such as with Turkey, and raised the status of Russian. In literature and art, alongside Fitrat, Cho‘lpon, Abdulla Qodiriy, Hamza and Sadriddin Ayniy, a new generation such as G‘afur G‘ulom, Oybek, Hamid Olimjon and Zulfiya emerged, and the Tashkent State Conservatoire opened in 1936.