USA Africa Dialogue Series - Global Corruption Report: Education

Education is also particularly prone to corruption. Huge resources are often disbursed through complex administrative layers, inadequately monitored all the way from central government to schools. In Nigeria this allowed at least US$21 million to be lost over two years, and double that amount in Kenya over five years. Where governments are unable to guarantee free education for all, aid to basic education of some US$5.8 billion per year (2010) flows to countries that are often least equipped to make sure it reaches its intended target.

The high importance placed on education also makes it an attractive target for manipulation. Those who provide education services are in a strong position to extort favours, and are often driven 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 opportunity for their children, and are often unaware of what constitutes an illegal charge. Bribes to reserve a seat at a prestigious primary school in Vietnam, for example, are documented to be running at a level more than double the country's GDP per capita.

The increase of higher education students worldwide from 32 million in 1970 to 159 million in 2008 indicates that higher education is no longer a reserve of the elite. The changing environment in which higher education institutions function brings its own particular corruption risks. Public resources have not been able to keep pace with change, and competition for non-traditional resources and prestige places increasing pressures on higher education institutions and staff. Institutions without effective oversight and control are most prone to corruption, and in some instances this has undermined whole systems of higher education and the reputation of research products and graduates, regardless of guilt or innocence. High-profile allegations of plagiarism in Germany are common, while university professors in a Greek university were recently imprisoned for the embezzlement of €8 million.