The corruption is very or extremely present at the universities, say 20% of the polled Macedonian students. One of ten students in the country had an experience when a professor asked him/her for a bribe, while 6% of them offered bribe for a higher grade. Over 90% of the Macedonian students don’t know to react, or where to report corruptive behavior at the faculty.

Implementing the project “Universities without Corruption in Albania, Macedonia, and Serbia”, the Institute for Strategic Research and Education (ISRE) presented on Thursday the preliminary results of the poll on the students’ perception of the corruption in the higher education in Albania, Macedonia, and Serbia. The poll was conducted in May this year by an independent agency, polling 300 students in each country. The project was financially supported by the regional grant “Smart Balkan – Civil Society for Connected West Balkan” – Professor Misho Dokmanovikj, Project Manager for our country, informed.

“Unlike the other two countries, the Macedonian students are least informed on the issue – over 90% of them don’t know how to report corruption, or whether there are competent institutions or organ within the faculties. Asked why they don’t report corruption, 34% of them said that they feared consequences if they do”, professor Dokmanovikj added.

Addressing the event, Vladimir Georgiev, member of the Corruption Prevention Commission, said that the hyperproduction of universities in the country impacts the quality of the higher education. According to him, that is one of the crucial risk factors, because it leads to lax educators’ selection criteria, compounded by the race for bigger number of students.