It seems that no one can escape the sharp claws of corruption in Russia’s vast bureaucratic machine – not even school children. The Soviet Union held up its educational system as one of the central examples of the superiority of Communism, but with the break up of the Soviet Union education reform and funding was found wanting. Even with the dearth of births in recent years parents still regularly have to pay for a child to attend a state-run nursery school. Once in high school, schools have been known to extort handsome sums of money from well-heeled parents. When at university, payments for grades become common.
All of this helps to breed the endemic corruption we see today in Russia. Corruption has become a way of life that follows you from birth to death.
Greg Feifer of NPR recently had an excellent story on the current state of the Russian educational system. Listen to it here.
Published Date: March 31, 2009