RATIO: Corruption, Money and Sex in exchange for Notes in Albanian Universities

Periskopi

23 July 2019, 10:21(7 years ago)

Since October 2018 until a few days ago, the Albanian Helsinki Committee has undertaken a “survey by young people fighting corruption in higher education”. On the basis of this initiative is a survey the committee conducted against 1799 students of different universities in the country as “Alexander Moisiu” Durres, “Luigj Gurakuqi” Shkodra, “Alexander [...]

The students generally belonged to three years of study in the Bachelor system. While, regarding the gender of respondents, it is confirmed that most of them were girls with a number of 79.43%, while 20.57% of students were boys.

The committee said the poll has been conducted by relying on several key points, out of which the presence of corruption in universities has been highlighted. The survey of students from all universities confirmed that the number of students who have knowledge of the education law was at low levels. Another disturbing part was the fact that students have low commitment to student structures and movements. Only 3.61% of respondents are part of student movements and 2.33 % in structures like the Student Council.

About 45.2% have indicated that they are unable to run freely as representatives of the Student Council whenever elections are held in Fakulet. As far as knowledge of the election process of student councils is concerned, most students, about 58.8 per cent of them show they have no knowledge at all.

While political influence in these elections was highest at Shkodra University “Louis Gurakuqi”, followed by the university “Alexander Xhuvani” Elbasan. The data reportedly shows that the data consistently undermines the credibility, independence and meritocracy of these structures, which must be resolved with free, impartial and fair votes.

It is positive that about 72.4% of students showed that, in terms of respect for equality in procedures followed by the university, or faculty. But professional practices and career consultations at the university, scholarship applications outside Albania and participation in scientific conferences still remain in the country, reports Si newspaper. Also continues “saga” of literature. Some 43.1 percent of students surveyed admit that they use open literature to prepare them in academic courses, while 1 out of 3 students admit to using literature assigned by the professor of course in preparation for the course.

The data has also shown that a small portion of students do not see their assessment at seminars, while about 47.7 per cent of them claim that the secreting process in final evaluation exams always occurs. On the other hand, it is said that a relatively low number of students have benefited from the score review process, supported by 32,6% who have benefited from this process on occasion.

Another major concern found in this survey is that professors seek sexual favor from students. In all, about 25% of students (or 1 out of 4 students) surveyed referred to having been subjected to requests or pressures for sexual favor from teachers in exchange for the grade. While half the students refer to the problem of not respecting the stated deadline to receive answers regarding the documentation they have requested. The survey finds that students see themselves resistant to corrupt phenomena and believe they can rely on high university incidents such as Dean and Rector, while Media takes the lead in responding to corruption.