Slight decrease in corruption in education gives us great hope

Corruption prevails in every strata of the society. It has engulfed every aspect of government, non-government office and institution. But the corruption in education proves seriously sensitive as corruption in this sector directly affects all the machineries of the state because the human resources of the state is produced by this sector. So, the corruption in this sector must be minimized at any cost. Transparency International as a part of its global drive has opened its report on Bangladesh part which definitely makes us happy and proud. It shows the corruption in education of Bangladesh at a declining index. Our education minister also deserves great appreicaiton for it as his integrity and assertiveness are not foreign to us.  
But we cannot afford to be self-complacent as corruption   still remains a 'serious hurdle' to ensuring quality education in our country. Here twelve percent people pay bribe in education against seventeen percent globally. TIB Executive Director said education is highly vulnerable to corruption as the country lost over Tk 700 million in the form of petty corruption in primary education in one year. He continued 'Yes, the level of corruption in education sector has been reduced comparatively. But there is no scope of self-satisfaction as it still remains a key obstacle to quality education.'  The report was released on the feedback of 114,270 respondents from 107 countries. The Bangladesh part was based on 1800 respondents. In 2007, 39 percent of people used to pay bribes for availing education, it was 15 percent in 2010 and 14.8 percent in 2012. This year Bangladesh has stood at the third position in South Asia showing corruption index twelve percent in educational field. It is 3 percent in Nepal and Maldives, while the level of corruption in education in India is much higher as 48 percent, Pakistan which 16 and Sri Lanka 13 percent. This picture really makes us happy but we will have to go along way still.
Our education sector gets 2.1 per cent of the total budget for education against the internal benchmark 6 percent. The government and all concerned have a huge scope to look into this area as to see the downgrade index of corruption depends on it. The implementation of anti-corruption basics such as access to information on education policy, code of conduct for educators, parent and student participation in governance, and clear systems of oversight and accountability across the education spectrum would ensure that every taka ends up where it should be. Almost one in five people worldwide paid bribe to education services last year, according to Transparency International's 2013 Global Corruption Barometer. In the world's poorest countries the number rises to one in three. Against this barometer the picture of Bangladesh is encouraging indeed.
It also shows that in all cases corruption in education acts as a dangerous barrier to high-quality learning and social and economic development. It jeopardizes the academic benefits of universities and may even lead to the reputational collapse of a country's entire higher education system. We have a serious concern for our public universities as corruption of the students' leaders, academic backwardness due to teacher politics and teachers' direct involvement in politics may upset the whole picture positioning our education field after India or like Pakistan. Iftekharuzzaman has rightly said.  "We need to be more careful in eliminating corruption from the key sector as unethical practice could lead to emergence of incompetent future leaders and professionals." If we fail to bring back the sound atmosphere in our public universities, we will not be able to make future leaders. At any cost we must stop the games our universities are playing today.
We can easily banish corruption from education sector if we allow this sector to follow   its own course and to be guided by real educationists, not the so-called political educationists. We must stop the interference of the MPs in the academic affairs of the schools and colleges. Student politics under party banner must be tightly reined in. The government which will be successful in this regard will be able to give a sound and healthy picture in the education sector. Passing files in the Directorate General, student leaders' admission business in the university colleges and universities are the vibrant areas of corruption. If the government tightly reins and deals with these areas, definitely corruption will disappear from this sector and we will emerge as a corruption free country at least in the education sector. And it is true if education sector becomes corruption free, other fields will be very much transparent.  
Member of TIB Trustee Board Syed Monzoorul  Islam hailed the achievement of Bangladesh, saying that the country needs to keep  the trend going to root out corruption in education sector. "Corruption in education system cannot be accepted at all as it gives the perception among the future leaders or young citizens that corruption is socially recognised here. "For schools to educate the corruption fighters of tomorrow they need to be free from corruption themselves. Without a strong dose of integrity, our schools and universities will fail to provide future leaders with the basic tools needed to succeed, and more importantly, to combat graft," said Huguette Labelle, Chair of Transparency International.
The writer is Program Manager at BRAC Education Programme and Vice-president of Bangladesh English Language Teachers Association (BELTA),
email: [email protected]