Search Page

Admissions, courses, grades and diplomas are for sale in high profile higher institutions. Admissions officers offer expensive private lessons. Reforms should include an accreditation system, an entrance exam and an increase in financing.

Georgia: The Minister of education and science plans to reshuffle the education system of his country so as to reduce corruption in universities. One way to do this consists in standardising admission exams, under the supervision of a national organ only.

Due to new reforms, high school graduates applying to college will take a standardized assessment exam for universities in order to resolve the issues of corruption and select the best-suited students. According to the Transnational Crime and Corruption Center, American students applying to Tbilisi State University faced fees from USD 5 000 to 15 000 for entrance-exam preparation classes taught by the same professors administering the tests.

Despite a recent report from the government indicated that bribes paid in state universities total as much as 20 million lari ($10.9 million) per year, the plans to introduce national tests for university admission to make a more "fair" system with equal access and less corruption might be put on the shelves due to budget problems. According to Tbilisi State University only 20 % of the university's students managed to pass the school's entrance exams without paying bribes.

In Georgia, the Soviet legacy and the later collapse of state institutions produced an educational system plagued by corruption, nepotism, centralization and lack of teachers and professors. In addition, during the 90's, private low-quality schools with titles like "university" and "institute" sprang up. Controversies have been raised after colleges and universities have been closed or merged, and thousands of academic and administrative positions abolished.