Corruption in the education sector

Salaries

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The purpose of this section is to:

• discuss how public sector employees' wages can be used as a policy tool for eliminating corruption in education,
  
• look at the existing literature on links between teacher misconduct and academic fraud and the levels of salaries of teachers and
  
• discuss the role of development projects in this context.

Pay reform in the context of civil service reform

The relationship between pay and corruption in the education sector needs to be seen in the context of broader civil service pay reform. This is because public salaries in the education sector are generally ruled by fairly rigid civil service codes that make it legally and politically difficult to change salaries for teachers and administrative personnel without changing salaries for everyone else in the public service. In countries where private providers are contracted to provide public services, payment mechanisms and fees are the relevant policy instruments for addressing corruption rather than salaries.

Civil service reform has been an accompanying component of structural adjustment programmes in the last couple of decades. In a 1994 report the World Bank argues that low pay has been a major issue in the reform of public services in most countries.

It is noted that reform of civil service pay is especially vital for the rehabilitation of Government, particularly in terms of realising improvements in capacity and the delivery of public goods and services. The latest contribution to analysing civil service reform, the World Development Report (WDR) published in 2004, however, does not mention pay reform. Perhaps one reason for its omission is the difficult and highly political nature of the issue, on which the Bank does not want to voice an opinion.

There has, however, been an ongoing debate between donors and within the DAC Governance network on the subject of pay reform during the last couple of years.

At a meeting between bilateral donors and representatives of five African countries in London (2002) the successes and failures of the reform efforts and the impact of outcomes were discussed. Among the emerging features were the need to:

• reduce overstaffing
• address low pay
• improve service delivery, and
• bolster morale in the civil service.
• The lack of political support was identified as one of the main constraints.

At a meeting organised by the DAC/OECD Governance network group in Oslo in June 2004 a draft report on “Pay Policies in Sub-Saharan African” was discussed. The report covers eight countries and offers a useful definition of “pay” that includes four different elements: salary, retirement or post-employment benefits, allowances and in-kind benefits. It observes that in general an increasing usage of allowances and in-kind benefits to pay public service staff in these countries often indicated a budding crisis in the management of pay policies and practices.

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The importance of salaries in fighting corruption

As is evidenced in the paragraph above the situation in the education sector has gone through a difficult period. In this example it is Albania but the same applies to many other countries in East, Central and South-eastern Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America. Deteriorating salaries have in many cases been an accompanying effect.

The importance of adequate remuneration to ensure an honest civil service is widely recognised in the international discourse on civil service and pay reform. In the academic discussion of the importance of salaries in fighting corruption the following main lines of argument can be found:

• The higher the relative salaries in the public sector, the more an official loses if he is caught in corruption activities. Officials getting caught are usually expelled from the public sector and forced to work in the private sector.
  
• Low salaries in the public service attract only incompetent or even dishonest applicants, which results in an inefficient and non-transparent corrupt administration.
  
• When government positions are paid less than comparable other jobs, the moral costs of corruption are reduced. Poorly paid public officials might find it less reprehensible to accept bribes than officials receiving a comparatively fair salary.

Most researchers see salary increases as a necessary but not sufficient condition for reducing corruption. According to Rafael Di Tella, raising wages is possible primarily at the very low level of bureaucracy. Once subsistence levels are guaranteed, high wages will deter corruption only if officials are  audited.

Findings by Di Tella and Schargrodsky from a Buenos Aires study confirm that the degree of audit intensity is crucial for the effectiveness of anti-corruption wage policies. The main challenge is to sustain a high level of auditing over time. Exposing acts of corruption may be a positive move for a new government but exposing corruption can become damaging in the long run, indicating failures and mismanagement of public funds.

Daniel Kaufman and his colleagues at the World Bank Institute, however, argue against the importance of salaries in fighting corruption. They believe that undue emphasis may have been given in previous work to a number of conventional public sector management variables such as civil servants’ wages, internal enforcement of rules etc. They are of the opinion that more attention should be given to external variables such as external voice (public participation and scrutiny) and transparency.

Studies of absenteeism in the health and education sectors also question the importance of higher pay to reducing absenteeism among public servants. What seem to be more important are a) more frequent inspections, b) an improved work environment, and c) measures to increase accessibility such as nearby housing or good transportation.

In a comment on the report on “Pay Policies in Sub-Saharan Africa” an additional dimension is highlighted. “Technical solutions to public sector service pay policy without due attention to a country’s political context are not sustainable”. Therefore donors are recommended to take the following factors into consideration:

• political will versus political feasibility
  
• political priorities
  
• trade unions as stakeholders
  
• donors as political actors.

In the discussions it was noted that donors need to be more observant on their preferences, policies and influences over the character of pay reform. One particular aspect of donor assistance which has drawn criticism is the establishment of Project Implementation Units (PIU). Civil servants in the PIUs are normally far better paid than their colleagues, and this can breed discontent and low morale among the latter.

This problem is also mentioned in the WDR 2004: “Advocates of project implementation units recognise that the arrangements can undermine local capacity building, create salary distortions, and weaken the compact between policymaker and the provider organisation”. Whether or not PIUs induce corruption through the demotivation of staff can probably only be judged country by country and project by project.

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The problems in the education sector

Low salaries
Low salaries in the education sector are seen to contribute to the following corrupt practices:

When teachers sell grades or require students to pay for private tutoring, most observers recognise it as corruption. But it is tolerated because everyone understands that it is necessary to survive. Their corruption may be interpreted by some as a reasonable adaptive response to a difficult situation. In some instances it is even tolerated by government, which sees it as the only way to maintain the number of teachers and the quality of teaching.

Budget constraints in many developing countries make it difficult to raise salaries for teachers. Increasing salaries may also not be enough to break the vicious circle:

Low salary > low motivation > corruption and low learning outcome

Other important elements include social responsibility, self-realisation, and access to training, teaching materials, professional satisfaction and prestige.

Budget constrains can be aggravated by inefficient use of resources. According to WDR 2004 too great a share of the educational budgets of developing countries goes to higher levels of education. Another problem is directly related to the fact that even at very low wages, the salary costs crowd out all other inputs. Many countries allocate more than 90% of the education budget to salaries.

The WDR 2004 also refers to empirical studies showing that increases in teacher salaries have little or no association with learning outcomes. This is not directly linked with corruption but is an effect of the low budget allocations for teaching materials and/or improved school facilities.

In addressing the problem of salaries and corruption in the education sector it is helpful to look at the various stakeholders, including teachers, students and parents. Even if there are very few studies of teacher job satisfaction in developing countries, studies available show that what attracts people to the teaching profession is its degree of autonomy, job security and respect. Involving teachers in the fight against corruption through their unions and professional codes of conduct therefore seems to be a reasonable way to go, in parallel to discussions on salaries.

One telling example is Education International (EI) , a Global Union Federation with more than 300 member organisations in 159 countries. In total these organisations have a membership of 26 million teachers and education employees. At its fourth World Congress, held in Porto Alegre, Brazil in July 2004, EI discussed a draft resolution on the role of education in combating mismanagement and corruption:

Academic fraud
Public examinations in developing countries play a critical role in the selection of students for participation in the education system. Examination corruption has become a business in some countries and individuals and groups engage in malpractice for monetary gain. According to the International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP) academic fraud seems to be on the increase across the world. The existing literature looks primarily at the role of students in committing fraud. While greed is indicated as one major cause of academic fraud it is rarely linked to the issue of low salaries.

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Project examples and some lessons learned

The issue of salaries has been addressed by donors in various ways, firstly through their support for civil service reform processes, secondly through direct support to pay reform programmes and individual key government departments. U4 donor support to these programmes can be found in the project database. Below is a selection of general civil service reform approaches:

• Civil Service Reform and Retrenchment, DFID, 2000, in Kenya includes a study on pay policy.
  

  The Government now wishes to refocus the civil service reform and to increase the pace of implementation in order to achieve better control of the wage bill, to further improve the balance of spending between operations and maintenance spending and to promote improvements to service delivery. A medium term strategy will therefore be developed which addresses issues such as controlling the future size of the civil service; the development of realistic and affordable targets for the wage bill and for pay reform; concentration of Government on core priority functions and the divestment or abolition of low priority and redundant activities; improving performance and building capacity to enhance service delivery. (U4 proj. database)

• Payroll management and establishment control project, DFID, 2000-2003, in Zambia is aiming at reducing opportunities for corruption, and releasing recurrent resources to boost operational budgets.
  
  
• Uganda Public Service Reform 2002, DFID, 2002-2003. The project has led to rationalised pay structures, monetised allowances and increased pay levels by around 100%.
  
  
• Personnel Controls and Information Systems Project, phase 2, DFID, 1988- 2003, in Tanzania. The purpose is to generate cost savings to enhance payroll and to support the improved delivery of public services.

Examples of donor support in the education sector of relevance for salaries and corruption:

Integration of Teachers´ Voices into the Education for All in Cambodia: Teacher status, social dialogue and the education sector
ILO commissioned report by Pact Cambodia, January 2004

This report was commissioned by ILO’s Sectoral Activities Programme to review teachers’ status and social dialogue in Cambodia within the framework of the Education for All programme. Problems in the implementation of the government’s education plan were identified as including the slow release of funds, questionable data, and corruption, high student/ teacher ratios, lack of a forum for resolving complaints and resolving complaints, fear of being penalised for refusing to relocate to remote areas, and low salaries. The report concludes that teacher-government collaboration through social dialogue would increase the commitment and support of teachers in achieving aggressive objectives in the education sector. It is therefore recommended that the legitimacy of teachers’ organisation should be enhanced through a broad-based rights agenda for teachers.

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