Resize Text: In this article, the author considers corruption in higher education in Ukraine, including such aspects as corruption in admissions to higher education institutions, corruption in the academic process of teaching and learning, and corruption in administering the newly introduced standardized test for high school graduates. The author builds a grounded theory that explains the issues of compliance, collusion, and control. This theory is based on the idea of governmental control over corrupt higher education institutions. It implies a spillover of political graft in the academy, which facilitates educational corruption and suggests that the state may encourage the institutionally based culture of corruption in higher education. The author presents the implications of the current regime’s actions in the context of the educational reform taking place in Ukrainian higher education and argues that the ruling regime is interested in breeding corruption in academia to sustain its existence.
Arrat L. Osipian is a PhD candidate in the Department of Leadership, Policy, and Organizations at Peabody College of Education at Vanderbilt. He holds a doctorate in political economy from Kharkov National University, Ukraine, and an MA in economics from Vanderbilt University, where he came as a fellow of the U.S. Department of State. He served as an assistant professor of economics and had his books Economy of the Welfare State and Economic Growth: Education as a Factor of Production published in Ukraine. His research interests include corruption in higher education and inequalities in access to higher education from an international perspective, the nexus of educatino and economic growth, modern welfare states, and politcal economy of transition.
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