Reports of Bribe-Taking at Russian Universities Have Increased, Authorities Say

Moscow

Reported instances of bribery and corruption increased dramatically last year on campuses throughout Russia, according to law-enforcement officials.

More than 1,000 incidents of bribe-taking and related abuses by administrators and professors were confirmed last year, an increase of 32 percent over the 2000 levels, Iskander Galimov, a spokesman for the economic-crimes unit of the interior ministry, said Tuesday.

Mr. Galimov said that corruption is so prevalent that lecturers and administrators have formed what are tantamount to organized criminal groups in even the most prestigious of Russian universities. It costs between $10,000 and $15,000 in bribes merely to gain acceptance into well-regarded institutions of higher learning in Moscow, the daily newspaper Izvestia has reported.

“The bribery figures are only a small part of this huge iceberg of a problem, however, as the people who pay bribes often are reluctant to come forward,” Mr. Galimov was quoted as saying by the Itar-Tass news agency.

The ministry last year recorded incidents in 58 of the country’s 89 regions. The majority of abuses, however, were concentrated in the eastern region of Khabarovsk, the Siberian region of Krasnoyarsk, and the western region of Novgorod.

At Astrakhan State Technical University, about 700 miles south of Moscow, three professors were arrested after allegedly inducing students to pay cash to ensure good grades on exams. In total, the three reportedly accumulated more than $16,000 in bribes -- about 15 times the average annual salary of a university professor.

Over all, Russian students and their parents annually spend at least $2 billion -- and possibly up to $5 billion -- in such “unofficial” educational outlays, the deputy prime minister, Valentina Matviyenko, said last year in an interview.

Mr. Galimov said that the interior ministry and the ministry of education were maintaining close contact in an effort to reduce the spread of what he characterized as the “pressing problem” of bribery and corruption.

Background article from The Chronicle:

• Corruption, Conflict, and Budget Cuts Afflict Academe in Former Soviet Republics (12/14/2001)