While youngsters in the west scour the Internet, rummage through newspapers and seek the advice of guidance counselors, for Uzbekistan's youth it is every man for himself. Anyone who thinks the state will protect them in their pursuit of integrity and a job well done is doomed to disappointment and ruin. Careers are chosen these days not on the basis of professional ambition or denying oneself for the greater good of socialist humanity, but increasingly on the extra-curricular benefits accruable to an individual or his clan.
Good jobs are expensive to come by.
The price of a job increases with its potential returns. Teachers have been particularly let down by democracy and the infiltration of the hated capitalist ideals they were brought up to despise. The truly unscrupulous can make it big in teaching, especially in higher education. Doctors, able to hold an ailing population to ransom by unethical charges for their often incompetent treatment, have to pay big bucks not only to qualify, but to continue their training. The law and order sector is riddled with every kind of scam going and by definition one of the most costly to enter.