Corruption in Education

AIM Zagreb, 16.11.2000.

We have grown so accustomed to corruption in the past few years, that it is practically impossible to find a single person who hasn't fixed a hernia operation, a passing mark on an exam or a favorable verdict in a court of law for himself by means of a "blue envelope". The blue envelope being a socialist era code for bribery, although at the time the phenomenon, if judged by the "working capital" in question, was in its preschool phase, so to say. The one we are basking in at the moment has successfully run through the entire educational system, compulsory and oriented, graduated from college and is about to get its postgraduate titles, at one point bestowed in numbers equaling publicity ball-points dealt out at Christmas time. If nothing else, one can always recall Franjo Tudjman's "honorary foreign doctorate", the Split master's degree of Ante Djapic or still obscure status of Vice Vukov's formal jurist learning.

Corruption in education is a commonplace discussed among students in student restaurants and parents worrying about the success of their adolescent children at secondary school entrance examinations. Corruption in health services is disgusting, but just imagine the absurdity of the whole thing if by illegally purchasing health you are, in fact, reimbursing the past expenses of a doctor who got his diploma and specialization by bribing university professors. You're buying health and expert knowledge of it, but there is no knowledge because it has prostituted itself previously, because somewhere along the line it has been misplaced, in unmastered textbooks or studies. Luckily, the state of affairs did not result in otherwise deep-rooted apathy or depression in the case of one Zlatko Popic, a senior stomatology student from Zagreb; instead, in a rather composed and convincing manner, the guy let the journalists know how the buying and selling is done at his faculty.

Popic has frozen his senior student trainee practice, until the last of the corrupted professors and their collaborators are removed from the School of Dental Medicine in Zagreb, he says. As for himself, he has never paid for an exam, but has made public a number of instances of "classic or subtle corruption" and is adamant in his decision to pursue the issue to its epilogue in court. Zlatko is fully aware of the fact that his colleges will "excommunicate him from the stomatological community", since the stomatologists are as tribaly minded as the next tribe, but he has no wish to be a part of them anyway, among other things, because "owing to the corruption of the professor at the School of Dental Medicine, 80 percents of the professors don't even know how to pull out a tooth". Subconsciously or not, Zlatko Popic has uncovered the behind the scene dealings at the entire University of Zagreb, layed them bare the way periodontosis lays bare a incisor or a canine. For, everything he has said of the School of Dental Medicine definitely holds true for the rest of the faculties in Zagreb and Croatia on the whole as well.

The excitement his disclosure aroused has little to do with any of it being a novelty, but is rather a consequence of amazement that anyone still finds the issue of corruption in education perturbing enough to act against it. For the time being, the not-destined-to-be young stomatologist says: "The majority of the professors (...) are into criminal (...) They sell exams and turn everything into material gains. The student has (...) become a client at the faculty. What you've paid for you get!" For instance, professor So- and-so ( Papic cites them by name) made it clear to his students at the very beginning of his course that it would be sensible of them to supply themselves with his textbook, sold at the faculty desk. Those who bought it, had a special signet stamped in their matriculation books; immediately previous to the sitting for the exam, the professor would take a peek, just to see if the signet was at its designed place.... The faculty care-taker played the role of the mediator between the student-customers and professor-merchant, yet another archetypal "humpback" in another horror classic of the Croatian educational system.

It's yet to be seen who played the "humpback" at the time the Minister of Education Vladimir Strugar drew up the bill for the new Textbook Act, although the name of the publishing house "Skolska knjiga" is mentioned often enough... It's plain as can be that the intention of minister Strugar and associates' draft bill is to legalize corruption in the textbook publishing policy. In short, the Ministry of Education is to keep its determining role in the bidding and consequent putting into circulation of new primary and secondary school textbooks in Croatia. Everything else, from the establishment of prerequisites to the control of their compliance with the school curriculum, will be dealt with by individuals outside of the Ministry, immune to all questions raised about their competence. The Ministry itself is to become their administrative service.

The seven wise men from the so called Textbook Council will be appointed by the Minister of Education and chosen "among prominent experts in the field of education" making it hard to say exactly what sort of standards they themselves will have to meet so as to be competent in each and every subject of the twenty four school half-terms. In any case, these men will replace the numerous membership of the former Textbook Department at the Ministry of Education, recruited on recommendations of professional institutions, from faculty departments to scientific institutes. Pending the term of office of some clearly authoritative ministers, corruption also somehow slipped through due to certain reviewers and ministerial advisers, but with the given concentration of power in a single body it will be elegantly channeled and thus - not less significantly - become entirely elusive and wanton in the future.

The governmental Legislative Office has criticized the draft bill of the new Textbook Act because of the incompatibility of a number of its provisions with the existing regulations, the inconclusive nature of the Textbook Council, the appointment procedure, criteria for the selection of reviewers, etc. A few week points were brought up by the Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Justice, while the Ministry of Culture had no objections whatsoever... In spite of the criticisms set forth, well-informed fear that the draft bill will be adopted by members of parliament worn out by a several weeks long session on constitutional amendments.

In this manner the mentioned "Skolska knjiga" - for years a clandestine commanding post of the Ministry of Education - will find itself in the position to control the textbook policy and gain a monopoly of- the continuing corruption.

The systematization of corruption under the auspices of the Ministry of Education has pushed aside another burning issue of education: the indoctrination of the curriculum. In many respects, it has remained identical to what it was like two or five years ago, that is to say incorrect and prejudiced. Or, to put it more clearly, it now "feigns madness" to a slightly greater extent than previously. Until recently, Bosnians were blamed for the Croat-Bosnian war. According to the latter-day textbooks - there was no war at all, since there is no mention of it in most history books. Of course, there is no room for wonder, once the historians agree to the proposals of petty daily politics. One of the history textbooks for fifth- graders, teaches children that " the doings of a historian resemble the doings of a police inspector ".Which is true to a certain extent since, unfortunately, Croatia has turned into one of those countries where historians and the police resemble each other greatly, either through "blue envelopes" or some other suchlike French benefit.

Igor Lasic

(AIM)