Prague, Oct 1 (CTK) – The Pan-European Platform on Ethics, Transparency and Integrity in Education (ETINED) of the Council of Europe, within which experts from some 50 countries are to jointly fight against corruption in education, launched its activities in Prague yesterday.
The experts will also cooperate with organisations that have focused on this topic for a long time, including Transparency International (TI) and UNESCO.
A research TI carried out two years ago showed that corruption in education is a problem. Perception of it ranges from 6 to 72 percent in individual countries, with the European average being 34 percent and no system being completely “pure.”
The platform was introduced at the 7th Prague Forum on Education in Europe. Its activity was symbolically launched by Education Minister Katerina Valachova and Snezana Samardzic-Markovic, CE director general of democracy.
She said corruption affects all levels of education.
Corrupt behaviour can have a number of forms in addition to bribes. They include fraudulent acquisition of degrees and plagiarism.
Samardzic-Markovic said yesterday corruption undermines the very bases of democracy because schools are generally perceived as a place where all should be equal.
Where the public does not believe the education system, is convinced that highly-placed people in various spheres of life have attained their posts thanks to a certain privilege, not only due to their abilities, it is detrimental to democracy, she said.
