di Shors Surme –
Education is a fundamental human right and a catalyst for social change. Around the world it is seen as the key to a better future, providing the essential tools people need to sustain their livelihoods, live with dignity and contribute to society. Furthermore, education has the potential to instill hope in our children and encourage a spirit of common and shared responsibility for our planet and humanity. The values transmitted through education are perhaps its most important product. By striving to help students internalize values and principles such as dignity, integrity, freedom, equality and non-discrimination, participation, responsibility and transparency, education can play a vital role in anti-corruption efforts and the promotion of human rights. It is therefore essential that they are reflected in study programmes, textbooks and practical life.
Unfortunately, like many other sectors, the “education sector” is also prone to corruption. Huge resources are often channeled through complex administrative levels, not adequately monitored all the way from central government to schools. The high importance placed on education also makes it an attractive target for manipulation. Those who provide educational services are in a strong position to extort favors, and are often pressured to do so when corruption higher up the chain leaves them undervalued, or even unpaid. At the same time, parents are driven by a natural desire to provide the best opportunities for their children and are often unaware of what constitutes an illegal charge.
Transparency International’s “Global Report on Corruption: Education” sheds light on the various shapes and forms that corruption in the education sector can take. It demonstrates that in all cases corruption in education acts as a dangerous obstacle to high-quality education and social and economic development. It not only distorts access to education, but also affects the quality of education and the reliability of academic research results. Corruption jeopardizes the academic benefits of educational institutions and can even lead to the collapse of the reputation of a country’s entire education system. The report examines the entry points of corruption at every stage of education, even before entering the school gates, and right up to PhD and academic research. In order to assess the way forward, this well-researched Transparency International publication also highlights innovative approaches to combat corruption in education.
Corruption in education especially affects the poor and disadvantaged, especially women and minorities, who are usually unable to afford the hidden costs of admission or abide by the rules that determine success. Whether the corrupt class thwarts ambitions, or children are forced to abandon education altogether, vulnerable members of society miss out on the opportunity to realize their full potential and social inequality is maintained. Corruption in education is particularly harmful as it normalizes and generates social acceptance of corruption from an early age. Because children and youth rarely have the ability to question classroom rules, they may internalize corrupt views of what it takes to succeed and transmit them into society. When this becomes a social norm, its cycle begins again in every generation.
In the 18 years after Saddam Hussein we could witness a decline in the education system in Iraq, also because intellectuals and educators were subjected to harassment, intimidation, kidnappings, extortion and murders.
The decimation of professionals, due to the war and other various reasons, occurred in a context of generalized attack on the Iraqi middle class, and affected teachers, doctors, engineers, lawyers, judges and other figures. So the country found itself from having one of the best education systems in the region, to one of the worst.
