Cheats Hit Russian Colleges

   
俄罗斯教育部门腐败之风日益严重，学生代考、老师受贿以及贩卖假文凭等丑恶现象目前已引起有关方面的关注。

    据英国《卫报》6月24日报道，越来越多的中学生正在通过代考企图进入名牌大学就读，因为名校的毕业文凭是他们日后找到好工作的通行证。莫斯科高等经济学院副院长坎托罗维奇指出："仅在我们学校，今年春季就抓到了4名入学考试代考者。这些作弊现象不是孤立的，它已成为错综复杂的商业行为。"

    的确，代考现象仅是俄高等教育体系中"世风日下"的最新征兆。本周，由俄罗斯教育部和莫斯科高等经济学院联合公布的报告表明，去年，该国各教育机构收受的学生入学贿赂金额超过3亿美元。莫斯科高等经济学院估计，名校法律专业的导师一次性直接收受的贿赂金额可高达3万美元。

   
在俄大中学校出现日益严重的作弊现象的同时，还存在着更严重的弄虚作假之风。目前，一些由教师和学者撰写的论文和各种假文凭正通过互联网公然叫卖，知识造假市场正在兴起。

   
莫斯科警察局发言人指出，对于教育机构中目前存在的腐败现象如果证据确凿，将会立案侦查。

    （蒋黎黎）

    The heads of some of Russia's most
prestigious educational establishments yesterday admitted that students use
surrogates to pass examinations for the most sought-after places.

    Students are using increasingly
ingenious methods to gain entry to top institutes, whose qualifications are a
passport to lucrative jobs.

    The surrogate students are only the
latest symptom of an epidemic of corruption that has gripped the Russian higher
education system. A report published this week by the Ministry of Education and
Moscow's Higher School of Economics (HSE) showed that more than $300m (?165m)
was paid in bribes to enter the country's educational establishments last year.

    "In our school alone this spring
we caught four impostors who were attempting to sit the entrance tests in place
of others," said Grigory Kantorovich, deputy head of the HSE. "Those
were not isolated cases; it's a whole, specialised business."

    Such corruption is multiplied by a
burgeoning market in coursework and diplomas written by teachers and lecturers,
which can be bought over the internet.

    A direct bribe to lecturers to enter an
institution can be up to $30,000 for a top law faculty, the HSE estimates.

    A police spokesman said there was no
dedicated unit for tackling corruption in education, but individual cases were
investigated if evidence was handed over.