What price, an education?
Sometime ago a newspaper article in one of the main government run newspapers carried the headline: “When was the last time you paid a bribe? … or took one?”
What constitutes a bribe, (“vzyatka” in Russian), is an interesting question. The Oxford English Dictionary defines “to bribe” as “persuade (a person etc.) to act especially illegally or dishonestly in one’s favour by a gift of money, services, etc.”. The use of the word “especially” is important — because although it stresses the illegal or dishonest aspect … it implies that any payment or gift is covered.
Of course, a payment (either in cash or “kind”) in return for something illegal or dishonest is wrong … but what about “a box of chocolates”? A recent survey in Kyrgyzstan revealed that most people thought that giving a box of chocolates as a “Thank You” was acceptable — but that payments offered or demanded for completing routine tasks was not.
The Americans have a law preventing their businessmen from participating in corrupt practices — but, as I understand it, “facility payments” to minor officials for the purpose of smoothing over bureaucratic difficulties is not included as a serious breach of the law. I suppose the “box of chocolates” as a “Thank you” would be acceptable.
I was once told by a top government official that here in Kyrgyzstan it is not only a crime to accept a bribe — it is also a crime to give one. I pointed out that it was the same in the UK as well. In the West, we also have corruption — but it tends to be of a different scale or form. Whereas in the UK it is a rare occurrence and likely to bring serious consequences — here it is almost ingrained and rarely seems to be punished. On the contrary, the system almost seems designed to facilitate it.
Not only are the salaries of government officials low, they are often paid late. The officials have considerable power — by withholding a signature or stamp they can cause all sorts of problems and delays. How much easier to make a “facility payment” and receive the necessary signature, stamp etc.
Payments are often requested, and even expected, by all sorts of officials. The Kyrgyz government is trying to run a campaign against corruption, but it is hard to see how successful it will be — as corruption is a fact of daily life here. The President has even recognized that it exists right up to the top floor of government house.
Don’t misunderstand me … not everyone here is corrupt. Not every minor government official is “on the take” … but, unfortunately, quite a few appear to be.
Fortunately, most of the examples I can quote are hearsay — they reflect reports in the press or from the internet. Police who lay traps for unsuspecting citizens and then demand money to “destroy the record” … the official who says “pay me, and I will deal with your documents straight away, or else they will wait on my desk until I have time to look at them”, with the implication that when (if?) they are examined then all sorts of problems may be found.
What has really upset me in the last week are two stories I have been told. One about a young girl studying for her driveling license who says that at first she was asked, “Can you lend me eight hundred dollars?”, and when she said she hadn’t even seen that sort of money — was asked for fifty dollars. That’s a whole month’s salary for her … and for many people it is more than a month’s salary. It’s not the official fee — it’s not payment for the lessons — (I am told that she could even get the license without taking the lessons, or the test) — it’s simply for processing her application.
I was once told — and it would be a joke if it wasn’t so serious — that the cost of a driving license is about “one and a half sheep”.
I am surprised that there aren’t more accidents on the road than there are …
The second incident involves a young man trying to enter University, who was asked to pay seven hundred dollars. Once again, it wasn’t for the official fees or the cost of lessons, (he is entitled to free education because of his personal circumstances).
It’s one thing to say that it costs money to provide an education — the building has to be built, or rented; we have to pay for the heating, the electricity, the water … ; the staff have to be paid; materials (books, paper, chalk … computers …) all cost money. Students can be asked to contribute towards the cost where they can — that seems legitimate, but this seems to go long way beyond that.
It doesn’t stop there. Once into University there may be yet more demands for money. There are stories of students being asked for money by teachers before an examination. I have even heard of cases of impersonation — one of where a young man claimed he had passed examinations for three different universities … each under a different name … and the other involving a girl, who managed to pass an examination for her brother.
On one occasion even I was asked if I would sit a Tofel Test for someone — but I declined, pointing out that even if I was willing to do so — which I wasn’t — and in the unlikely event that we wouldn’t be caught, then, (even as a native English speaker), there was no guarantee of success because the examination is so rigorous and many English people (myself included) don’t know their own language very well.
It is possible to find on the internet websites containing essays which students download, change the name of the author, print out and then hand in for marking. I am surprised that the teachers don’t know what is happening — they must know what is happening … maybe they did the same when they were students.
To be fair, it happens in the west as well. I remember once, as an examiner marking a piece of coursework that had been sent to me for moderation. Thinking “this looks familiar” … I went back over my records and found that I had marked the same piece the previous year — only the names were different.
Plagiarism is usually very easy to spot. I remember one occasion when I was going over some homework with a class asking two boys how they wanted the marks split. Their work was identical, and if it was worth 9 out of 10, who should I give the 9 marks to, Adam or John? (not their real names, by the way), or should I split it 50-50 and give them 4.5 each? To be fair, Adam owned up straight away and said I should give the marks to John.
Then there was the time when I was sent a piece of work which had been copied from a standard textbook. I suppose it was unfortunate for the student that I knew the textbook — as I said, it was a “standard” textbook.
On another occasion I was moderating some coursework and came across the phrase “… as can be seen in Fig.13 opposite …” — I looked for Figure 13 and couldn’t find it. Looking a bit more closely I found other phrases that seemed to make it clear that the piece had been lifted from a book.
Worse still was the time when I was sent a piece of coursework to mark and I thought “This looks familiar”. So it should, it was an example I had written and given to classes for several years running as an example of how to write a piece of coursework. How could I fail it? — Easily.
When I was growing up, there was a popular “teenage” film where the “hero” is doing shown his homework. He is sitting with three large books open on the table in front of him and copying a paragraph from each book, one after the other, and he comments — “copying from one book is just ‘cribbing’, but using three … that’s research”. If someone just copies then there is little value in what they are doing … but if they collect and combine information from different sources, reorganizing and restructuring it, then they really need to understand it. That is research and does have value.
I suppose I wouldn’t be so incensed about it, but as a former teacher (and examiner) I rate rather highly the value of education. I don’t think it should be bought and sold in this way. The funny thing is that the Kyrgyz also place a very high value on education. Most young people want to study and work hard to obtain qualifications despite the difficulties and handicaps.
The former Minister of Education knew that many people “bought” their places in Higher Education and “bought” their results and she wanted to put an end to the practice … so she tried to introduce a new system. For example, students are supposed to be admitted to University purely on merit — based on a points system. I hope that her new system proves successful in the course of time, but I think it still has some way to go.
Bishkek