CORRUPTION AND PLANNING IN EDUCATION

CORRUPTION AND PLANNING IN EDUCATION

-Corruption –This refers to the misuse of office for unofficial ends e.g. bribery, exploitation, influence peddling, nepotism, fraud, use of money to bribe government officials to take some specific action, embezzlement etc.

-In education, corruption includes the abuse of authority for personal and material gain Hallak and Poisson (2001) defines corruption in education as the systematic use of public office for private benefit whose impact is significant on access, quality or equity in education.

-corruption can occur in any stage and among any group of actors from planning, policy makers and the ministernal  level to provide at school level such as teachers and contractors to the beneficiaries of education such as students and parents. Corruption practices in education can include bribes and illegal fees for admission and examination, preferential promotion and placement, charging students for tutoring sessions to cover curriculum needed to pass mandatory exams and that should have been taught in the classroom, teachers absenteeism, illegal practices in textbook procurement provision, infrastructure contracting etc.

-Hallak and Poisson (2001) agree that corruption affects education in 3 key ways.

a)      The pressure corruption exerts on public resources and as a consequence on education budget which represents the largest component of public spending. Corruption of this sort can cause price to rise and the level of government output and services delivery to fall, thus reducing investment in education services.

b)      Corruption impact on the cost of education services, their volume and their quality. Students who are educated in corrupt system may not learn the skills needed to take advantage of available opportunities and to contribute to economic and social development.

c)      Corruption impact on core values and ethics during the formative years of young people lives. Corruption in education may undermine an entire generations core values regarding accountability, personal responsibility and integrity.

-corruption in education is particularly important because the sector usually accounts for large share of public expenditure. This means that even low level of corruption can result in the wastage or loss of significant amount of public resources. A study by Transparency International  (TI) (2005) documents how the leakage of resources in the education sector thru corruption translate into poorly constructed classrooms, leaking roofs, dysfunctional toilets, latrines, furniture, inadequate textbooks etc.

Mauro (1998) observed that the existence of corruption causes a loss than optimal composition of government expenditure.  Moreover, corruption in education affects the overall access, quality and equity of education e.g poor families may be faced with paying illegal fees and bribes to enroll their children in free public schools on overage, the poorest 40% of the pop in developing countries spend 10% of household income on cost for primary schools. When its’ suppose to be free (Oxfam 2001). Official as well as irregular enrollment rates (Burnett, 2004). Corruption may also reduce spending on key learning impacts like textbooks (China, 1999), and many also affect the overall quality of education by reducing           time, in effect offering children fever learning opportunities Gupta  Aral (2000)ended that corruption affects learning outcomes i.e. countries with higher levels of corruption tend to have higher drop-out rates. In fact drop-out rate in countries with low corruption and highly efficient government service are 26% points lower than development rates in countries with high corruption & low efficiency.

Klitgaard’s (1998) corruption framework for education.

This framework identifies key devices of corruption in one equation form;

M+D-A-T=C i.e.

Monopoly (M) + Discretion (D)-Accountability (A)-Transparency (T) =Corruption (C)

According to Klitgaard (1998), an organization more likely to experience corruption when it has monopoly power over a good or service and the discretion to decide who will receive it and how much they will receive, and is not accountable for the outcome. Linked to all three drivers is the aspect of transparency. Increased transparency constitutes monopoly power and the unbridled use of discretion and is essential to instilling the accountability of decision makers.

-this framework is relevant to education in that education systems are monopolies even in decentralized education. And that schools in slow innovation, less attention to cost control, a lack of choice and a lack of accountability. While the lack of innovation and choice may negatively affect quality and inattention to cost may make the system much less cost-effective. It’s the lack of accountability that contributes to corrupt practices.

-large education bureaucracies have discretion to decide who gets services. They are also to plan and allocate resources according to their own design. This can happen through the bridged process school organization, school construction and rehabilitation, teacher’s appointment, promotion, assignment etc. Teachers for instance, are trained and licensed through a government- controlled system and are assigned by the authorities to the schools in which they will teach, their employment conditions and remunerations are determined by the government.

-it should be noted however that monopoly power and discretion need not always lead to corruption and can be countered (balanced) in a system with high levels of accountability i.e. monopoly and discretion could exist in a system were made more accountable-with sufficient checks and balances to exercising discretion, transparent decision-making, access to relevant information and effective monitoring and evaluation. Weak accountable increases the likelihood of misallocation of resources, expenditure leakages, lack of performance monitoring and evaluation, and how demand for services among the poor (World Bank, 2003).