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Mapping corruption risks in Kosovo’s education sector
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and IIEP have recently released a report outlining where corruption risks exist in the administration of Kosovo’s education services. The report also includes recommendations to help prevent the mismanagement of allocated resources and build integrity in the sector.
At the invitation of UNDP in 2014 and in close collaboration with UNDP Kosovo’s project Support to Anti-Corruption Efforts in Kosovo (SAEK) and the Kosovo Anti-Corruption Agency, IIEP mapped current corruption risks across all levels of Kosovo’s education services.
The assessment is based on the results of a census of the education sector, which revealed that over half of the respondents see corruption as a major problem in schools and everyday life.
The assessment included a desk review of existing documentation and in-depth interviews with major stakeholders from the central level down to the regional, municipal, university and school levels. Its overall goal was to pinpoint corruption risks in the education sector to create strategies that address the underlying governance and anti-corruption bottlenecks.
The report provides a detailed analysis of corruption risks in three major domains, including financing, teacher management, and procurement.
Main findings
- Major risks relate to the production and distribution of textbooks (at the ministry level); Given the absence of school autonomy, risks are low at the pre-university level;
- Major risks relate to the discretionary power of the Directorates for Education at the municipal level, particularly in the area of recruitment of school personnel and of school construction and maintenance;
- Major risks exist at the university level in all three focus areas.
In order to strengthen anti-corruption efforts in Kosovo, the report recommends the following actions:
- Run a Public Expenditure Tracking Survey of the Specific Grant for Education, from the Ministry of Finance, down to municipalities and schools;
- Support the efforts of the municipality of Pristina to standardize new procedures in the area of staff recruitment and public procurement;
- Organize capacity-building workshops for the municipal directors of education culminating in the signing of a Charter of Transparency in Education by all municipal directors of education;
- Develop a training module on ways to heighten ethical behaviour among school stakeholders, to be included, in particular, as part of teachers’ pre-service and in-service training;
- On a competitive basis, invite students from the University of Pristina to develop an e-platform on transparency issues.
UNDP Kosovo and IIEP will continue to promote institutional transparency, accountability and integrity in 2016, with a particular focus on empowering citizens and access to information.
Download the full report here
All references to Kosovo are made in the context of UN Security Council Resolution 1244 (1999).
