The Transparency International organization has published a report entitled World Barometer of Corruption 2010, in which the education system of Armenia is described as one of the worst ones in the world. The biggest problem in this sector is corruption.
Everybody knows that corruption is widespread in the country and the way they are struggling against corruption is mere demonstration and people don’t need reports to affirm the fact of corruption. However, the report included the most dangerous information, according to which the most corrupt sector in Armenia is the sector of education. The index of corruption in the education system of Armenia is very high, which is very dangerous for the future of the country. The media has discussed this issue but it has been forgotten for some time due to the mayor’s resignation. On June 10-20, 2010, the Russian company Romir involved in sociological surveys conducted a research in Armenia, and this company is the official partner of the Gallup International in Russia. The survey targeted 1,000 families and the survey was conducted by phone. Half of the respondents believe the level of corruption has grown during the past three years, 15% believe it has been reduced, and only 35% believe that the level of corruption is the same. This means that the society does not believe any more in the fight against corruption. 53% of the respondents believe the government’s efforts to fight corruption are not effective, and only 27% think that these efforts are effective. The other 20% believe nothing has changed. “This is a drawback because last year 48% thought these efforts are not effective, and 38% thought that those are effective,” writes the statement attached to the report.
There have been degradations in all the sectors without exception. The comparison of the sectors included in the report shows that compared to the situation in those sectors last year, the existing situation is worse and the level of corruption is higher. The only sector where the level of corruption has not grown is the sector of media.
The authors of this report have separated the sector of education in Armenia as in this sector the level of corruption is significantly high and there is no equal. ”There is no other country than Armenia where people unanimously say that the sector f education is the most corrupt one and there is no other country where this sector would get the highest number (4.2 out of 5),” writes the report. The Armenian society believes that with the high level of corruption the second and the third places are the police and judicial systems as these sectors have been given 4.1 points. According to the respondents, the least corrupt sector is the sector of religious organizations. Corruption is a very negative thing generally, but if it is widespread in the sector of education, it is tragedy. The specialists of the corrupt education institutions cannot be a good asset for the country. Generally people say that corruption is widespread in schools, but it is not the worst thing as in this case mainly the parents deal with corruption. But in universities students become independent people and when they see this corruption, they become indifferent to it, which affects their views to the life. Several weeks ago the prime minister criticized the sectors of education and healthcare and said that these are the most corrupt sectors. The impression was that the authorities had just woke up and seen what is happening in the reality. It is not the first time that the education system is mentioned in the reports of international organizations as a highly corrupt sector. In 2007 the UNESCO conducted a research concerning the level of corruption in the sector of education. The result was that they came to the conclusion that the capacity of corruption money in the CIS universities reaches hundreds of millions. However, we had our specific place in this report. ”Fictive universities are growing like mushrooms in the CIS, which are offering paid and fake diplomas. The authors of the research believe that the worse situation in terms of selling illegal documents is in Armenia,” writes the www.gazeta.ru. By saying fake diplomas they don’t mean falsified ones (even though there have been such cases too) but diplomas issued by private universities to those students who don’t attend the lessons but pay all the formal and non-formal fees and get diplomas without getting the adequate education. For example, such diplomas have most of the traffic police officers of Armenia.
To be honest in the recent times the situation has become better in private universities as now it is not so easy to sell diplomas openly. However, instead of that there is another bad shortcoming, which is the fact that people can sell or give titles of academicians as presents. It does not concern the national academy of sciences but some academies that are registered in places that nobody knows about and they give titles of academicians to people that don’t have anything in common with those sectors or are funny generally. We will not discuss the issue of becoming candidate of sciences because anyone who has a little success or money can buy this title. Such titles are usually bought by officials or people from the political elite. It is corruption too because if a politician or official gets a title of academician as present, he will have to pay for that favor by abusing his official powers. And if the top authorities are struggling against corruption with such methods, it is a very bad demonstration or show to judge a couple of teachers or school directors for corruption. This index of corruption in Azerbaijan is 3.3. The report writes the following about Azerbaijan: ”In the dark colors of the CIS the only exception is Azerbaijan”.
As for us, we want to develop the economy based on the intellectual potential and education and leave the other countries of the region behind. So far we have been able to leave them behind only with negative examples.