Corruption in higher education is as endemic as in other institutions. One way to cut down on it, argues STEPHEN P HEYNEMAN in the latest edition of International Higher Education, is to survey students and faculty regularly.
Once the dean called me about a grade for the daughter of the rector. The rector was in the hospital. The dean said that he has suffered enough already and that I should not make him suffer any more, so I should give his daughter a good grade. - Assistant professor in Kazakhstan. Admissions were a way to make money. Big money. - Administrator in Georgia.
Universities are commonly thought to be a haven for young adults. No matter how unstable the polity or how dismal the prospects for the economy, education investments are treated as sacrosanct.
Recently, however, it has been discovered that education systems can be as corrupt as other parts of government and the economy; and that values of fairness and impartiality, once thought to be universal characteristics of university systems, can be supplanted by the interests of specific individuals, families, ethnic groups and institutions.
Such misconduct includes the abuse of authority for both personal and material gain. Higher education can be corrupt through: the illegal procurement of goods and services; cheating in the provision of its normal functions (admissions, grading, graduation, housing and academic products); professional misconduct (favouring of family members, sexual exploitation, bias in grading, research plagiarism etc); and cheating in the paying of taxes and the use of university property.
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Source: University World News, Issue No: 0157, 06 February 2011
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