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Felipe Fern¨¢ndez-Armesto suggests that Venezuela's president, Hugo Ch¨¢vez, is "wasting" the country's resources ("Lack of laughter is no joke", 6 January). Research by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development suggests otherwise.

In 2010, the Education for All Development Index confirmed that the fivefold increase in social investment that made education completely free at all levels has massively reduced inequality in Venezuela. To put this starkly, in real terms this means that more than 2 million Venezuelans are now in higher education, compared with 600,000 in 1998 when Ch¨¢vez was first elected.

I just wish that we could have such a "presence of tyranny" in our government with "vacuous" policies. Oh wait...

Alpesh Maisuria, Senior lecturer in education studies, Anglia Ruskin University.