Tackle education corruption

Corruption in educational institutions ruins the foundation of the nation’s future and must be tackled, says an article in the China Business News.

Excerpt:

Cai Rongsheng, head of the student enrollment and employment division of Renmin University in Beijing, was captured in Shenzhen recently while trying to evade customs and flee to Canada on a forged passport.

Cai admitted that hundreds of millions yuan were involved as bribes in student-enrollment work he oversees. The former secretary of the university president was also taken away by the police to assist with the investigation.

In the past several months, a series of university corruptions have been exposed at universities in Sichuan, Jiangxi and Hubei provinces.

The university is much like a small society. Campus corruption is similar to the corruption of government and society in many aspects.

The recent cases indicate that construction projects, logistics, student enrollment and research are the most likely links for campus graft and abuse of power.

Yet, to some extent, a university is separate from society, providing its officials with a much freer environment in which to seek illegal profits from power that is largely ill supervised. Corrupt officials form cliques of longtime colleagues, or enjoy other close relationships that make the corruption system stable and hard for outsiders to break into.

Quality education resources mastered by university officials form a foundation from which they can wield their powers — influencing bids for campus businesses, rich and powerful parents of students and lower-level young teachers who are eager to be promoted in professional and hierarchical ranks.

Transparency of university operations lags behind that of the government because society habitually focuses most of its attention and pressure on government, leaving campus corruption unchecked for a long time.

The Renmin University case is a reminder to corruption supervisors of how serious the issues are, and that action is overdue.

Key primary schools and middle schools should also be scrutinized.