Higher Education Corruption in Ukraine: Opinions and Estimates

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The Constitution of Ukraine guarantees the right of education. The law says “the state guarantees free access to preschool, secondary, professional, vocational, and higher education in the state and municipal educational institutions.” In reality the positions of the free, state-funded higher education have been seriously undermined by the growing corruption in admissions, grading, and graduation. The president of Ukraine, Victor Yushchenko, pointed out corruption in education in his address to the students at Kiev National University on March 9, 2007: “We are talking about the way to eradicate corruption in higher education institutions, starting from the entry examinations; how to create an independent system of conducting competitive examinations; how to make it possible for the state funds that now extend to 54 percent of all students in higher education institutions to support those specialists requested by the state who come through truly transparent and honest competition.” Symbolically, in June 2007 the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine hosted a conference in Kiev titled “the major corruption schemes in the education system and the ways to eradicate them.”