$100 most common bribe in Yerevan Universities
After a post by Katy on higher education reforms in Georgia and my own recent post on corruption in the same sector here, the Armenian newspaper Azg reports that the Government along with the OSCE and UNDP have conducted a survey of University students in Yerevan.
According to the results of the survey, 73.6% said that the average bribe, especially during entrance exams, was $100.
Interestingly, 14.6% of the 490 students surveyed said that they believed that the education sector was the most corrupted in Armenia although UNDP considers the situation quite logically, in my opinion.
UNDP employee Vahan Asatrian thinks that it is natural that the students consider educational system the most corrupted one. “A person in a certain sphere overestimates the problems in his sphere. Students consider universities to be most corrupted and those engaged in jural system see their system as such”, he said.
The full report can be read online here.
I want to state here that although the educational system is corrupt it is not necessary for students to pay bribes. My fiancee was tempted to when she was attending university three years ago but her father always made her study hard so that she passed all her classes and exams. I remember in my conversations with others that students pay bribes to take the “easy way out,” that is so that they will secure their chance of passing, graduating, and so forth. We all know that Armenians in general love taking shortcuts whenever possible, and obtaining an “education” is no exception. You can even buy advanced degrees without attending one day at university.
Garo
Comment by Garo — 5/17/2005 @ 1:23 pm
News on making exams more transparent:
http://www.armeniadiaspora.com/js_05/050608exam.html
Comment by Katy — 6/9/2005 @ 4:58 pm
hotels and motels
reputations deluding.noises misleading region wasps plaza http://plaza.popular-hotels.com/
Trackback by hotels and motels — 5/22/2006 @ 2:03 am