Uzbekistan’s colleges said to be bogged down in corruption

TASHKENT – Shukhrat Kayibov, 16, lay in bed in a half-lit room staring at the ceiling.

His dreams of medical school were dashed.

A week earlier, he had taken the entrance exam for medical schooling.

“I left many questions blank,” he said.

Entrance exams, today, are weighted much more heavily than they were in the past in Uzbekistan. It is a system that some educators say eliminates corruption but it is one that many students and parents say keeps the door to bribes open. (Kyrgyzstan’s education system faces similar charges.)

Shukhrat was unwilling to respond to most questions about how he did on the test, fiddling instead with the edge of his bed sheet and biting his lip.

A photograph of his former classmate Zuleikha protruded from his biology textbook.

A few days after the test, Shukhrat had attempted suicide. His mother had found him in the bathtub after he slit his wrists. Doctors saved his life.

“Shukhrat and Zuleikha went to school together. She was his girlfriend. … But now, after the end of ninth grade, they will have to part,” Shukhrat’s mother, Samira, said.

Uzbek admissions require bribes, some say

Applicants vie for admission to prestigious colleges in Uzbekistan based not on intellect and knowledge, but rather on their ability to pay bribes, many students and parents say.

After nine years of schooling, young people go to college or vocational school for three years to learn the basics of their future profession and complete regular high-school courses. After that, they may either try entering a university or look for work.

A record number of students this year have applied for spots in the country’s most prestigious colleges. For example, the Kalanov Information Technology College will select 150 students from 450 applicants. In all, 600,000 students are vying for enrolment in Uzbekistan’s 1,500 colleges and lyceums.

The ones listed among the most prestigious are the medical, law, IT, economic, hotel management and musical-circus arts colleges, First Deputy Higher and Secondary Education Minister Shavkat Zhavlanov said.

“College managers are claiming they will admit the most knowledgeable applicants, but in reality you have to pay,” said Margarita Zakhidova, whose daughter Farida is entering a Tashkent college. “We decided not to take chances but to pay US $500.” Her son entered the same college last year, also via a bribe, she said.

The entrance bribe ranges from US $300-$3,000 per person, Zakhidova said.

“(Shukhrat and Zuleikha) both dreamed of becoming doctors,” Samira said. “Zuleikha’s father is rich and will be able to pay her way through … university – unlike me with my monthly salary of US $80. … Even if Shukhrat does get high grades, he won’t be admitted to medical college without a bribe.”

It’s not just parents and students who admit bribery is a fact of life.

“The biggest bribe – about US $3,000 – is for admission to the lyceum of the University of World Economics and Diplomacy (UWED), where the children of labourers or clerical workers are not admitted at all,” said Valida Kaforova, an instructor at the university.

Only a few high school students will make it on academics.

“We already have a list of those who will be admitted, and most parents already have paid for their children’s enrolment,” she said.

“That’s not true; we didn’t pay anything,” disagreed Sofia Nosikova, whose daughter qualified for the UWED lyceum. However, she had hired tutors, at an average cost of US $3-$5 per hour, to help her daughter study for the test, she said.

Applicant Zorina Gadzhimuradova studied one year with four private tutors: “I want to enter a prestigious college, not just any of them,” she said. “You can’t hope to enter a good college without a bribe.(Still) my father … had to pay the college rector US $1,500.”

Entrance exam emphasis eliminates corruption, government says

Despite the reports of parents and students who say they have paid bribes, some educators say admitting students based on tests has eliminated corrupt practises.

When admission was based on grades, “school principals used to take bribes for issuing nice-looking high school diplomas. Today, teenagers come to take their entrance exams honestly,” said Kadyr Ozimov, a trigonometry lecturer at the IT College (in Tashkent).

“Entrance tests reflect the applicants’ knowledge accurately enough for the worthiest to be selected,” said Kakhramon Zuparov, director of the Computer Technology College in Tashkent, who also said that corruption is now minimized.

The old system’s flaws emerged after first-year university students took a series of evaluation tests, Zuparov said.

Under the former system, teachers would often give inflated grades for a bribe or at the principal’s request, high-school teacher Munira Khasanova admitted.

Education commissions part of process

Today’s situation is different, Zhavlanov said: entrance testing is the work of commissions that include the director of the school; one representative each from the State Testing Centre, the Ministry of Education, and khokimiyats (regional, district or municipal administrations); and vocational school and college instructors.

“This composition (of the commission) … rules out any unfair or biased assessment of high school graduates’ level of knowledge. Besides, four or five parents are invited as observers,” Zhavlanov said.

The new system steers young people into a profession with job openings that also meets their personal interests, according to the Ministry of Higher and Secondary Education.

Before Uzbekistan introduced the test system, only 56% of ninth-grade graduates went on to lyceums and colleges; the rest stayed in high school for three more years and were likelier to wind up professionally adrift, in the ministry’s view.

The system, though, is yet untested, and with prospects of having to pay bribes – at least in some cases – some students are being left out.

“That means I’ll … have to forget all about becoming a doctor,” Shukhrat said, “and all about Zuleikha too.”