Sun, 24 Nov, 2024

Corruption in Education

By Ruby Shrestha

Imagine a blind-folded man driving a bus. Will the bus ascend in proper orientation? Is the security of the passengers guaranteed? Probably not! This scenario is highly similar to a corrupt official governing any professional field, say education. A corrupt official has his vision confined by money. Money hunger shrouds his sight to such an extent that it will be almost impossible for him to drive the educational vehicle towards its goal. This regularly means that the future of every student related to that educational field will not be safeguarded. Hence, such corrupt officials, a disgrace to education, need to be filtered out. The corruption network of education in Nepal is burgeoning and so, the filtering process is gradually showing up as a tedious task. However, that does not mean that filtering is not taking place, because it is. On 17th July 2014, The Himalayan Times revealed the news of six education officials, a district education officer included, tagged corrupt for embezzling Rs. 1.5 million for a school which does not exist. According to the news article, the corrupt officials will have to face consequences such as jail term and refunding of the amount misappropriated. News like this has become an expected event for us, thus, it does not startle us much, though it obviously increases our concern level. It is not rare for us to hear news about authorized education officials being a part of bribery or maltreating government funds or misappropriating school and office budget. Every day many among such corrupt officials are pulled out of their authority. But the problem is that every day new members join the corruption network. Educational officials, instead of educating and informing others regarding the negative consequences of abuse of authority, are themselves getting involved in corruption. I find this shameful. The literacy rate of Nepal is not so high. It falls somewhere in the range of 55-65%. If the educational officials who are supposed to lead the educational sector of Nepal further and are expected to help increase the literacy rate get involved in appalling activities like bribery and corruption, what will the citizens in rural areas striving for a system of provision of education do? Bribery and corruption might temporarily help the corrupt officials raise their economic level above average. But what about those citizens in the rural areas who live a life of below “average” and can do a lot better if a source of good education is provided? As a student, I feel that corruption and educational development should never even be used in the same sentence. I think, the process of corruption elimination in education, however tedious it might get, needs to be continued. The officials governing the educational sector in Nepal should understand the value of power in their hands and should use it for implication of better means in the educational sector rather than heading towards illegal and self-beneficial bribery or corruption. Instead of using the government funds for self-fulfillment, why not use it for the betterment of education? Why not use the bribed amount for building a new school in rural areas where children are unknown to ABCs and 123s. Nepal has a lot of room for improvement in educational sector. Why not strive to get them fulfilled rather than filling one’s pockets?